ANC STATEMENT ON EBOLA PARTY CONTRIBUTES $1000 TO EBOLA FIGHT AND CALLS FOR IMPROVED PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM TO BETTER RESPOND TO FUTURE HEATH EMERGENCIES The Alternative National Congress of Liberia (ANC) has donated $1,000 to the fight against Ebola. The ANC made the donation today to the Liberia Ebola Response Project of Samaritan’s Purse, samaritanspurse.org, an internationally recognized US-based humanitarian organization with more than 40 years of experience in charity work across the world that is now at the center of the fight against Ebola in Liberia. Samaritan’s Purse currently operates two Ebola case management centers in Liberia that provide direct medical care to Ebola patients. In that connection, the organization is delivering critically needed equipment and supplies to more than 350 personnel, including a disaster response team composed of medical doctors and other health care workers, who are battling the Ebola crisis. In fact, we are sad to report that a Samaritan’s Purse medical doctor treating Ebola patients in Liberia is fighting for his life after contracting the disease. yourhealth.asiaone/content/us-doctor-contracts-ebola-liberia. Our prayers go out to him and his family. In addition to providing supportive care for Ebola victims, Samaritan’s Purse is conducting public awareness health campaigns across Liberia whose focus is educating people on how to prevent the spread of Ebola. According to Samaritan’s Purse, more than 430,000 people have been reached by this effort that also encourages people who may be infected with the disease to seek treatment. We urge all Liberians and friends of Liberia who wish to contribute to Samaritan’s Purse’s work to visit the organization’s website and donate today to the Liberia Ebola Outbreak Response Page at firstgiving/fundraiser/SamaritanPurse/liberiaebolaoutbreaksfundraisingpage. The ANC is convinced that with Liberian health care professionals working together with Samaritan’s Purse and other organizations, including the World Health Organization and the United States Center for Disease Control, Liberia will ultimately win the fight against Ebola. However, we believe there is an important lesson we should learn as a people and a country from our Ebola experience: the need to improve our public health system so that we can better respond to future public health emergencies. A critical component of such an improved public health system should be making the smart and relatively inexpensive investments in preventive care. As the WHO, who.int/features/2014/social-mobilisation/en/, has noted, the “key” to successfully preventing or controlling the outbreaks of health emergencies and diseases, particularly diseases like Ebola for which there is no “effective treatment or human vaccine,” is “raising awareness of the risks factors” and the “protective measures individuals can take” to prevent infection. Accordingly, in keeping with WHO recommendations, we should put in place a massive social mobilization campaign that involves everyone and uses television and radio stations, particularly rural radio stations across the country, to run spots and programs in local languages about simple steps people can take to protect themselves against Ebola and other diseases. This is a campaign that should draw on the expertise of the Ministries of Health, Information, and Education as well as our local creative artists. It should also be a sustained campaign that remains in place long after Ebola is gone so that it helps develop national health habits that will serve our nation well when we face the next public health emergency. We should also work to develop and maintain a team of fully trained and equipped first responders who can be readily dispatched to attend and control medical and health emergencies before they spread. In that connection, we must begin to make the necessary investments to ensure that our health care facilities have the very basics, including running water, so that they do not become breeding grounds for the very diseases they are meant to prevent or treat. We certainly are going through a very difficult time as a nation and the hearts of all of us here at the ANC go out to those who have lost loved ones to Ebola. It is our national duty to ensure that they did not die in vain. We can do so by drawing the right lessons from our Ebola experience and working together as a people so that we will not only survive our current health difficulties but also thrive as a nation. Let’s begin doing so by donating today to Samaritan’s Purse’s work in Liberia at firstgiving/fundraiser/SamaritanPurse/liberiaebolaoutbreaksfundraisingpage. Thank you
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 13:29:01 +0000
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