high (2020) food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: malaria and dengue fever water contact diseases: schistosomiasis animal contact diseases: rabies aerosolized dust or soil contact diseases: Lassa fever note: on 21 March 2022, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Africa; Sierra Leone is currently considered a high risk to travelers for circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV); vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus; this means it can be spread more easily to people who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or respiratory secretions, such as from a sneeze, of an “infected” person who received oral polio vaccine; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine Nationality noun: Sierra Leonean(s) adjective: Sierra Leonean Ethnic groups 18 native African tribes 90% (Temne 36%, Mende 33%, Limba 6.4%, Kono 4.4% other 20%) Creole 1.2% (descendants of freed Jamaican slaves who were settled in the Freetown area in the late-18th century) Refugees from Liberia's recent civil war Small numbers of Europeans, Lebanese, Pakistanis, and Indians Languages English (official, regular use limited to literate minority) Mende (principal vernacular in the south) Temne (principal vernacular in the north) Fula (principal language in Sierra Leone, it is also strongly and widely spoken across West Africa and beyond...) Krio (English-based Creole, spoken by the descendants of freed American and West Indian slaves and Liberated Africans who were settled in the Freetown area, a lingua franca and a first language for 10% of the population but understood by 95%) Education expenditure 9.3% of GDP (2020) Country comparison to the world: 7th Literacy Definition: Age 15 and over can read and write English, Mende, Temne, or Arabic total population: 43.2% male: 51.6% female: 39.8% (2018) total population: 48.1% male: 58.7% female: 37.7% (2015 est.) Total population: 35.1% Male: 46.9% Female: 24.4% (2004 est.) Total population: 31.4% Male: 45.4% Female: 18.2% (1995 est.)