Liberia News

Monrovia, Liberia, 15th February 2016 - Liberia continues to register progress in her efforts to respond to the health status of the Liberian population through building a resilient health system. A robust Health Emergency Risk Management System has been developed through building public health capacity for prevention, preparedness, alert and response for disease outbreaks and other threats.

Monrovia, 28 January 2016 - During a high-level meeting held on 18-20 January, the Ministry of Health of Liberia moved a step forward with plans for the establishment of a national public health institute (PHI). This is one of the priority components of the Liberia plan for building a resilient health system 2015-2021.

14 January 2016 -- Today, WHO declares the end of the most recent outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia and says all known chains of transmission have been stopped in West Africa. But the Organization says the job is not over, more flare-ups are expected and that strong surveillance and response systems will be critical in the months to come.

Monrovia, 8 December 2015 - Liberia is introducing electronic reporting which will enable faster detection of disease outbreaks. Learning from experience gained during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the country is beginning to use mobile technology to help health-care workers detect and communicate potential public health threats in a timely manner. 

Monrovia, 5 November 2015: Learning from the lessons from the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia, the Ministry of Health intends to reinforce health promotion in all parts of the country as part of the investment plan for building a resilient health system. In this regard, a meeting was held to validate a draft National Policy and Strategic Plan on Health Promotion, November 3-4, 2015 in Monrovia. The meeting was organized by the Ministry of Health (MOH) with support from WHO Country Office, Liberia and AFRO.

Monrovia 15 October - In view of the traumatic effects of the decade long civil war and the recent Ebola outbreak, mental health promotion is now more relevant to Liberia than ever before.

As part of its concerted efforts to build a Resilient Health System in Liberia, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in collaboration with WHO and other major international and national partners is focusing on advocacy and provision of adequate mental and psychosocial support services for persons affected by the epidemic and people with mental disorders in general. 

Monrovia, 10 October 2015: At a sub-regional surveillance meeting, held on 5-6 October 2015 in Monrovia, health experts from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone discussed a regional surveillance strategy for Phase 3 of the Ebola response. This entails transitioning from a strategy exclusive to Ebola to one designed to detect Ebola as one of a range of notifiable diseases under the Infectious Diseases Surveillance and Response (IDSR) system.

Monrovia, 30 October 2015: Health workers and researchers in Liberia will soon gain access to the world’s largest online collection of biomedical and health literature following the signing of  a five-year license agreement between the Liberian Ministry of Health and  World Health Organization’s (WHO) HINARI program – Access to Research.

30th September 2015, Monrovia - The Liberian Ministry of Health is working to strengthen the supply chain management system, a key strategic area of theInvestment Plan for Building a Resilient Health System (2015- 2021). This is to ensure accessibility and availability of drugs and medical supplies at all levels to reduce wastage. To build the county health teams supply chain management system, 15 County Pharmacists and 17 Supply Chain Coordinators have been recruited and deployed by the Ministry of Health.

The road to the 200-bed Redemption Hospital in Monrovia is unpaved. During the rainy season it is full of potholes and mud. Patients may have difficulty arriving, but they come, because Redemption is the only public facility in the area and serves some 90 000 people. In August 2014, the hospital was at the center of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. It quickly became overwhelmed and, for a time, had to close its inpatient department.