Liberia News

Monrovia, 20 May 2016 - The Ministry of Health Liberia with support from the World Health Organization, Development and Implementing Partners initiated a comprehensive training program for its County Health Teams and Health facility Managers as part of the health system strengthening plan. This is aimed at building the capacity at county level to implement integrated and people-centered operational plans for better health care service delivery.

Monrovia, 4 May - Jamese a fourth grade student aged 10 from Ganta United Methodist School who was the first girl to receive the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine said “I feel fine”. This was during the launch of the regional African Vaccination Week held jointly with the World Malaria Day commemoration in Ganta, Nimba County on 25th April, 2016. HPV vaccine has been introduced in Liberia to help to protect more than 14,000 girls at risk, against a virus that causes cervical cancer.

Liberia’s Ministry of Health, WHO and partners held a ceremony at the Ebola treatment facility in Monrovia to celebrate the recovery and discharge of a 2-year-old boy, the final patient in a latest flare-up in Liberia. His 5-year-old brother recovered a week earlier.

Liberia’s and Guinea’s last known Ebola patients in a latest flare-up of the disease that hit both countries have now been discharged. All remaining contacts of confirmed cases that were placed under a 3-week period of medical monitoring have been cleared.

Monrovia, 25 April 2016 - The WHO Regional Director for the Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti called upon all African countries to sustain gains and strengthen immunization coverage to reach the unreached communities. This was disclosed during the regional launch of the African Vaccination Week (AVW) under the theme “Close the Immunization gap: Stay Polio Free” in Ganta, Nimba County in Liberia.

Monrovia, 26th April 2016 - Liberia joined the rest of the world in celebrating the World Malaria Day on 25th April under the theme “End malaria for good” with a country slogan “pregnant women go to the clinic for malaria medicine’. This year’s theme reflects the vision of a malaria-free world set out in the “Global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030”. The commemoration was integrated with the regional launch of the 6th African Vaccination Week in Ganta, Nimba County.

Monrovia 23rd April - The Ministry of Health Liberia embraced the move to switch from the use of trivalent oral polio vaccine (tOPV) to bivalent oral poliovirus vaccine bOPV in its routine immunization schedule. This initiative to withdraw type 2 component of tOPV is part of the global polio eradication endgame strategy for 2013-2018.

All of Liberia’s 15 counties successfully implemented the national SWITCH day on April, 22nd, 2016. This historical milestone comes three days before the regional launch of the African Vaccination Week in Ganta, Nimba County on 25th April.

WHO and Ministry of Health teams in Guinea and Liberia have established epidemiological links between new Ebola cases in Liberia and a current flare-up of Ebola in neighbouring Guinea following intensified case investigations and contact tracing.

Update from the field
4 April 2016

WHO and Ministry of Health teams in Liberia and Guinea are investigating the origins of transmission in Liberia’s latest flare-up after learning that a woman who died from Ebola in Liberia last week had recently travelled from Guinea with her three young children.

WHO statement 
1 April 2016

Lab results confirm a new case of Ebola virus disease in Liberia — a 30-year-old woman who died yesterday afternoon while being transferred to a hospital in the capital Monrovia.

Liberia’s Ministry of Health, WHO and partner agencies immediately sent a team to the community outside Monrovia where the woman lived and the clinic where she was being treated to begin case investigation and identification of individuals who may have been in contact with her.

As many as 1 in 5 Liberians suffer a mild to moderate mental disorder, according to WHO estimates, yet the country has only one registered psychiatrist and, until recently, the vast majority of health workers had a limited understanding of mental illness.

This is changing however, as WHO and partners are helping to equip health workers across the country with the skills to provide front-line care for people with mental illness.