MONROVIA – The World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Coordinator to Liberia has clarified that there is no new outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the country.
An online site www.afro.who.int quoted a statement from the purported WHO website saying that on Saturday, April 18, lab results from a 30-year-old woman who died on Friday afternoon while being transferred to a hospital in Monrovia confirmed a new case of EVD in Liberia.
According to the website, “Liberia’s Ministry of Health, WHO and partner agencies immediately sent a team to the community outside Monrovia where the woman lived and the clinic where she was being treated to begin case investigation and identification of individuals who may have been in contact with her”.
The website’s report divulged that “Liberian health authorities convened an emergency meeting early this morning (Saturday) with key partners to coordinate and plan rapid response”.
But according to Dr. Julius Monday, the report on the outbreak of a new case of the Ebola virus in Liberia is false.
Dr. Monday noted that he remains the official representation of the WHO in Liberia, adding that, he has not sent any information about a new case of EVD in Liberia to neither the regional, nor the headquarters of the world health body.
He said the WHO will not publish such “half-baked” information on its website without any report from its office in Liberia.
“To the best of my knowledge, there is no case of Ebola in Liberia. I am the person responsible for updating WHO. Any information you see on WHO’s website relating to Liberia, I sent them that information after confirming with government. So, I have not sent anything like that to WHO; and no one else does it unless I am aware”.
“WHO will not give half-baked information. They will give you all the information. You know people like playing with websites with this of a kind purportedly. You remember someone printed a certificate and signed by the WHO sometimes ago?”
– Dr. Julius Monday, WHO Technical Coordinator to Liberia
“Check the information on the date; I am not seeing the date at all. WHO information has a date on it. Possibly, it is one of the information during the EVD outbreak that is being reiterated and people are not taking keen of it. But as we speak, I have no idea that EVD is in Liberia. If it is there, than-we have not inform the WHO to publish it. ”.
Dr. Monday continued: “WHO will not give half-baked information. They will give you all the information. You know people like playing with websites with this of a kind purportedly. You remember someone printed a certificate and signed by the WHO sometimes ago?”
He stated that though the WHO cannot overrule the re-emergence of EVD in Liberia, there is no single case of the virus in the country presently.
The WHO Technical Coordinator disclosed that Liberia has the capacity or system to diagnose or “pick up” any case of EVD in the country.
Dr. Monday, however, urged health authorities to be more vigilant and watchful of any outbreak of the EVD or any disease in the country, making specific reference to the reemergence of the Ebola virus in DR Congo.
He used this medium to further urge citizens and foreign residents to always visit the hospitals or clinics to seek advance medical treatment whenever they are sick.
Nearly 5,000 persons lost their lives as a result of the EVD outbreak in Liberia in 2014.
The latest clarification made by the WHO Technical Coordinator to Liberia comes at the time health workers are battling the outbreak of another deadly disease, the coronavirus in the midst of huge logistical and financial challenges.
At least seven persons have died from Covid-19 in Liberia, while 76 other confirmed cases remain active as of Friday, April 17, according to the National Public Health Institute of Liberia.