A CRISIS relief worker left Cowley for Sierra Leone yesterday to help tackle the Ebola crisis.

Caroline Kassell is travelling to the West African city of Freetown to work with community nurses and burial teams to reduce the spread of the deadly disease.

The 38-year-old, who has worked in crisis relief for 14 years, is in Sierra Leone for the second time in her career.

The Oxford Brookes University graduate said: “I’ve been to Freetown before to help after the war [in 2002], so I know some things to expect.

“But this crisis is completely different to anything I’ve ever covered because it is health related.

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“This disaster is so complex and difficult because so many people are affected in a country that is already poor and they don’t have the means to tackle it.”

Miss Kassell, who flew to Freetown yesterday, added: “We can see that the work of charities has had an effect. At the height of the crisis 155 people in Sierra Leone were infected every month. That has now gone down to 65.”

The World Vision charity worker, who will be managing burial teams, said the highly contagious disease causes logistical issues for emergency services.

She said: “The problem of the disease spreading comes from people infected and the dead.

When someone dies, the traditional thing is to wash the body and bury it, but unfortunately the bodies are very contagious.

“We train people to remove the body without spreading infection and bury the body humanely.

Another issue comes when people start to get sick in the community because the natural thing to do is hold a child who is sick, or comfort an adult.

“A colleague of mine said the disease thrives on love and sympathy. We train community health workers to inform the public of good practice.”

She added: “We don’t know the effects the crisis will have in years to come. Children aren’t able to go to school. The economy has ground to a halt.”

Christian aid charity World Vision, which has set up temporary community care centres in the worst hit areas of Sierra Leone, has asked the European Union to increase aid to the West African country, after it emerged 8,000 children had lost parents to the disease.

Miss Kassell moved to Oxford in 2013 after three years doing humanitarian work in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

She recently graduated from Oxford Brookes with a Masters in Development and Emergency Practice.