Government says the country is on full alert about the outbreak of Ebola in the region and has dispatched medical team of local scientists in all the counties sharing boundaries with the Republic of Guinea from Liberia.Though the is no case of Ebola reported in Liberia, Health Minister Wilhelmina Jallah told an impromptu news conference on Wednesday at the Ministry of Information that Liberia is prepared than ever before to deal with any disease or cases of Ebola outbreak in the country.
She said the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) and the Health Ministry are not leaving any stone unturned in the dealing with any outbreak and warned the media of making false publication about Ebola in the country where there is no proof.
“False reporting of about Ebola is creating panic or worry amongst the population, therefore, journalists and their institutions must stop the fake news,” she stressed.
On Sunday, Liberia, which shares a porous border with Guinea, announced its health systems would be on alert for potential cases.
Heounohu Romello Hessou, a doctor and senior official in the country’s Covid-19 response, worked in Liberia during its Ebola outbreak and said measures had rapidly begun since the first cases were announced in Guinea and an intensive test-and-trace system was under way in nearby Liberian border towns.
“Right now the entire public health institute, essentially birthed from the Ebola outbreak, is working around the clock, sending fact-finding teams, putting out public health measures in those towns bordering Guinea,” he said.
“Ring vaccinations” were being implemented, where vaccines to prevent and treat Ebola, would be administered to all known contacts of those infected, he said, with the capacity for widespread testing available.
However, report says health officials in Guinea are racing to contain a new outbreak of Ebola that has killed at least four people and raised concerns across the Mano River Union likewise the West Africa, which previously suffered the worst from the virus.
On Monday, February 15, according to reports monitored from Guinea stated that the fourth victim had died and seven others are being treated in an isolation center, suffering vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding.
It revealed that at least seven of the persons who had contracted the virus attended the funeral of a nurse in Goueke, a town near the Liberian border, on February 1.
“All measures are being taken to stem this epidemic as soon as possible,” Guinea’s health ministry said, thus declaring an outbreak of the virus last seen in the region in 2016 at the end of a traumatic three-year outbreak, which infected more than 28,000 people and caused 11,000 deaths in West Africa.
In 2014, it was from Guinea that the epidemic spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and other countries in the region, sparking extensive and vital prevention, treatment and surveillance systems in several countries, which health officials said had been immediately alerted to contain the outbreak in Guinea.