(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has urged the international community to continue its support to the West African nation in their recovery process from the Ebola virus epidemic it witnessed. Speaking on the concluding day of the Sharjah International Government Communication Forum (SIGCF 2015), Sirleaf said on her way to Sharjah for the forum, she ordered the lifting of a nation-wide curfew that had been imposed to combat Ebola.
Her order came into effect on Sunday - the same day as the reopening of schools after a five-month closure.
Responding to a question posed by Khaleej Times about the World Health Organisation's recent confirmation of two new Ebola cases, she said the disease has not been wiped out, but its occurrence has been brought down to a minimum.
Women leaders, she said, are "very strong" in tackling crises such as the one she faced.
The outbreak
Liberia's first cases of Ebola were recorded on March 30, 2014, in an area northeast of the country, bordering the Republic of Guinea. It was an unknown disease with limited spread at the time. As a result, it did not attract a national response as it was believed to have been controlled through efforts of the local health team. In June, the alarm bells started ringing. The disease intensified within the county in which it started and through cross-border and cross-country movements it quickly spread to several other areas of the country including the capital city where one-third of the population reside.
The immediate national reaction was one of "confusion, denial and fear as this was an unknown enemy". The disease spread rapidly and became an epidemic. The health system collapsed when doctors and nurses, without proper protective gear, died as a result of efforts to treat the sick on belief that symptoms reflected known diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.
"We faced the terrifying prediction that 1.3 million or at minimum, some 20,000 persons a month, would die in the three neighbouring affected countries before the end of January," Sirleaf said.
Mobilising action
"Our life was at stake, our livelihood was at stake. Everything we had worked for and achieved over the past 10 years was about to be destroyed. We attempted initially to contain the spread through restrictions in movements - enforced, where considered necessary, by security forces. Lacking the means of safe burial, we ordered a change in a long-standing cultural practice by ordering cremation.
"We ordered the closure of all schools, entertainment centres and sporting facilities. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed," Sirleaf said.
Liberia became the poster child of disaster as portrayed by the international media. In response, investors, contractors and citizens left the country. Airline service reduced from 13 to two per week. Work on farms, factories and infrastructure came to a stop. Liberians faced stigmatisation and ban by countries worldwide.
"There is no doubt that the Ebola disease exposed the vulnerability of our national health care system, which lacked the capacity, the systems and the technical facilities and supplies to respond to such infection, particularly an outbreak of this nature and magnitude," Sirleaf said.
Liberians took on the challenge to save the country. "A Coordinating Body was established to include all stakeholders - leaders of the three Branches of Government, the international community, civil society, traditional and religious leaders to reinforce that the responsibility to solve the problem rested essentially with ourselves."
The story about Liberia on the international media landscape also changed significantly over time - from one of fear to hope and currently to an unqualified assurance of collective and determined progress. "We owe it to our collective resilience and firm commitment to kick Ebola out of Liberia. In contrast, the local media invariably played a continuing remarkable role in systemic reporting on the crisis based on released and certified information by the Incident Management System."
Crisis communication
There are many lessons to be learned from Liberia's experience with the epidemic.
"Our inability to quickly learn and inform the public of the nature of the virus engendered distrust on the part of the population. During the intense period of the outbreak, we were most vulnerable in this era of rapid communication through social media and did not devise counter measures to get proper information to citizens at home and in the diaspora," Sirleaf said. "Our attempt to implore restriction through the use of security was not an appropriate response, and this led to conflict with a population already in a state of fear and distrust."
Ownership and participation of the community "was a key lesson which we learned" and which became the large measure of success. Preventive measures, including communication messages, need to continue to avoid a recurrence of the virus. This, Sirleaf said, calls for an active continuing role of the leaders and people in communities.
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