Monrovia – Montserrado County District # 6 Representative Samuel Enders has paid homage to the dismissed Director-General of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), Dr. Mosoka P. Fallah, for his resilience, commitment, and steadfastness towards combating against the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic and the Coronavirus pandemic in the country.
It can be recalled that President George Manneh Weah on September 4, dismissed Dr. Fallah with immediate effect following the submission and subsequent review of an investigative report into his management of NPHIL and the continuous contradictory COVID-19 reports.
The Dr. Linda Birch’s investigative committee report recommended the dismissal of Dr. Fallah for his alleged willfully refusal to attend meeting meetings of the Incident Management System for several weeks because he was not appointed to head one of the COVID-19 Response Pillars of the IMS, and developing a parallel system and protocol contrary to the IMS policies which he had endorsed.
The report claimed that Dr. Fallah did not also unilaterally started approving certificates for travelers without endorsement by the IMS. The committee stated that Dr. Fallah admitted that he did not inform his staff that this was not a system endorsed by the IMS, but indicated that it was a convenient system to save the country from the lapses of delayed results.
The dismissed Director-General was also found liable of issuing letters, instead of certificates, to 14 Nigerian diplomats to leave the country under the instruction of the Secretary of the Minister [not specified] even though the secretary is not a member of the IMS to instruct him to do such. The letters were issued pending the outcome of COVID-19 test results.
He also issued hundreds of letters for traveling without the approval of the IMS which the committee viewed as putting the country and the whole world at further risk. The investigative report indicated that about 50 percent of the letters were physically signed by him while others were electronically signed by his office staff.
Dr. Fallah was also nailed for unilaterally dismissed three employees without the knowledge of the Human Resource manager.
But Representative Enders urged the dismissed Director-General of NPHIL not to be discouraged by the action taken by the Liberian Chief Executive.
His assertions when contained in a statement posted on his official Facebook page over the weekend.
He added that though Dr. Fallah came back home to give his best to Liberia and its citizens, he is being seen by others as a “stumbling block”.
“I want to take this time publicly to extend my appreciation to you. You remain a statesman, a father, a leader, true Liberian and the architect of the NPHIL. I am grateful to you as many other Liberians. Let them not discourage you and let not your heart be trouble. The life you lived will continue to speak for you”.
“Thanks for being my EBOLA hero and my COVID-19 hero. You spoke out when the Liberian people money was stolen in the name of renting hotels, you stood up when they saw COVID-19 as a time to steal, they result where we are today; they are heartless. We came back to Liberia to give our best; unfortunately those who want to give less will see you as a stumbling block, stay strong, stand firm and sleep well, because you are giving your best”.
Dr. Mosoka P. Fallah is a Public Health Consultant and was recently made a Visiting Scientist in the Department of global health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health.
He is the Principal Investigator for the largest Cohort study on Ebola Survivor in Liberia.
During the Ebola crisis in Liberia, he served as the Head of Case Detection in the Montserrado Incident Management System administering critical aspects of Liberia’s Ebola response.
In this capacity, he has been providing technical support to the Montserrado County Health Team since the inception of the Ebola epidemic.
Dr. Fallah provides training for surveillance, contact tracing, case management, and community mobilization. He was instrumental in developing the training of trainers workshops for health workers across the national response. He has experience in international development work including serving as a consultant on a USAID-funded project with Indiana University and the Liberia Ministry of Health develop a program for the training of mid-level public health staff. Many of the students from his program led major Ebola response efforts throughout Liberia in surveillance and contact tracing.
Dr. Fallah was sometimes ago asked by the World Health Organization (WHO) to serve as a co-lead of the PPE end user Technical Working Group. He served as a member of the Harvard Global Health Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola, which includes Peter Piot, the co-discoverer of Ebola, Chelsea Clinton and Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Fallah received his Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine (2011); a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health (2012); a Master of Arts in Evaluation and Measurement from Kent State University (2006); and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry/Biology from the University of Liberia (2001).
As an Ebola fighter, he was a highlighted recipient of Time Magazine’s title of Person of the Year in 2014.