Monrovia – The ongoing community engagements and outreach activities in support of the Ebola Natural History Study continues to reach out to people in local communities across Liberia.
Report by Edwin G. Genoway – [email protected]
Less than a week after a tour of parts of Margibi County, the Liberia Crusaders for Peace and her partner, PREVAIL, last Wednesday visited the slum community of Battery Factory along the Somalia Drive discussing with residents the significance of the study.
The Ebola Natural History Study is a five-year research program for Ebola survivors and their ‘close contacts’ which is being conducted in Liberia by the Partnership for Research on Ebola Virus in Liberia (PREVAIL).
Speaking at the program the Advocacy Lead of PREVAIL, Joseph Boye Cooper, encouraged the residents to reach out to survivors and their close contacts in the community that have not enrolled into the study.
Cooper explained the various initiatives of PREVAIL since they came to Liberia almost three years ago.
He said up to present, PREVAIL has already concluded clinical trial for the Ebola preventive vaccine with about 1500 volunteers taking part in the trial at the Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town.
According to Cooper, the ongoing Ebola Natural History Study has so far enrolled 1200 participants, a number that is still short of the 7500 participants needed for the five year research study.
The Ebola Natural History Study named as PREVAIL three, is targeting 1500 Ebola Survivors and 6000 of their closed contacts.
It is meant to look at the root causes of some of the medical complications being suffered by Survivors and advance possible treatment solutions to the government of Liberia, through the Ministry of Health.
Cooper said the close contacts (people who took care of survivors when they were sick) were also being examined to investigate why they did not come down with the virus.
There are other sub studies taking place as part of the Ebola Natural History Study. They include birth cohort, semen collection, breast milk testing, and eye testing among others.
All of these sub studies, according to Cooper, are meant to ensure that the survivors remained healthy while a possible treatment solution is being investigated by the scientific research community in case there is a future outbreak in Liberia and any part of the world.
Following a presentation by the PREVAIL and LCP Team, residents were moved by the message and were asking as to whether they too could be part of the study.
But the fact is that you must be a survivor or a closed contact before taking part in the study.
Some of the residents speaking at the program also promised get to survivors and closed contacts in the battery factory area so as to join the study.
Much of the success of the Ebola Natural History Study is down to massive public awareness and community engagements carried out by the Liberia Crusaders for Peace which leads the pillar on Community Engagement for PREVAIL.
The LCP has so far taken the community engagement efforts to some hard-to-reach areas in the country especially communities that were greatly affected by the deadly Ebola outbreak in Liberia.
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