MONROVIA – The Director-General of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) Dr. Mosoka Fallah has led staff of the entity to Samuel K. Doe Sports Complex to voluntarily give samples for COVID-19 test.
In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, NPHIL strengthens existing infection prevention and control efforts, laboratories, surveillance, infectious disease control, public health capacity building, response to outbreaks, and monitoring of diseases with epidemic potential.
Dr. Fallah’s move comes a few days after Health Minister Dr. Wilhemina Jallah, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francis Kateh, WHO Representative to Liberia Peter Clement, Dr. Desmond William head of US Center for Disease Control (CDC) in West Africa and Liberia and USAID Resident Coordinator trooped to the sample collection center for voluntary COVID-19 test.
Health Minister Jallah said she and her team decided to initiate the voluntary testing as a means of encouraging citizens to submit samples for COVID-19 test.
Health Minister Jallah said the move was triggered by the realization that citizens were not coming out for testing. She described the move as “servant leadership”.
“We are here to have our samples collected because we want the Liberian people to know that it’s important that all of us have our samples collected so that we can know our results so that if we are positive we can be isolated that the transmission of the virus is broken,” she told journalists on Sunday morning.
The Health Minister stressed that “If people stay back and do not come for their sample collection, the disease will stay in Liberia for a very long time. So, we are here to show you that if we can do it, you can do it, too. We just want to encourage all of you – church members, media people, people in the market, people everywhere – that it’s very important that you have your samples collected.”
Dr. Fallah also believes that testing is more of the surest ways of getting Liberia free of COVID-19.