Monrovia – Some residents of ‘Lovers’ Street in the Old CID Road Community up Mamba Point have expressed fear to FrontPageAfrica that no health workers have gone into their community to begin contact tracing following the news that the former Liberian diplomat to Qatar, Ambassador John Ballout, has tested positive.
According to one of the residents, who wants his identity kept, Amb. Ballout lives just few houses from him in the same community, which is where the old MSF Hospital is located.
Speaking to this newspaper after he had read from our website that Amb. Ballout, who is also a former Senator of Maryland County, has tested positive with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)-Cov-II or Covid-19, stated he is yet to see any contact tracers in the community; adding: “This is making me scary.”
He is not a very friendly man; he passes before our houses sometime when he is strolling. He lives up the road from my place. No health worker has come to my house, which is very close to where he lives
Our source
“He is not a very friendly man; he passes before our houses sometime when he is strolling. He lives up the road from my place. No health worker has come to my house, which is very close to where he lives,” our source said.
He further described Sen. Ballout’s fence and some of those, who live very close to his home. “He lives in the second fence after the plum tree in the distance. Before him in the first fence is group of Lebanese merchants and after him towards the Old CID Road in another fence are Fulani’s. Opposite him are residents of some Lebanese, H. Boimah Fahnbulleh’s Liberian People’s Party’s Headquarters and the Fahnbulleh’s House and another group of Lebanese residents.
Responding, Mr. Chestor Smith, Communications Officer of the National Public Health Institute (NPHIL), said he had “personally” taken five contact tracers to the community to do tracing on Tuesday, April 7.
Ballout Breaks the News
Sen. Ballout disclosed to FrontPageAfrica on Wednesday, April 8, that he was at the 14 Military Hospital in quarantine after he tested positive with the deadly Covid-19.
He told this newspaper in a self-voluntary telephone call that he wants everyone to know that coronavirus is real that is why he was coming out willingly to break the news of him coming down with the virus.
He also informed that he had voluntarily driven to the testing center when he felt uncomfortable and his test was done and result came back positive.
Asked if he knew how he might have come in contact with the virus, he told this newspaper that he hasn’t left Liberia in several months so he can’t say for show.
Before now, Sen. Ballout’s name had not been mentioned or disclosed by the authorities. They have disclosed several other names of individuals who have come down with the virus.
Current Covid-19 Cases
According to NPHIL, Liberia now has 31 confirmed cases with 24 active cases, four deaths and three recoveries, including the index case. Also there are 10 suspected cases.