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Liberia: Flirting With Disaster - Porous Border, Close Ebola Recall

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allafrica.com - Front Page Africa - by Bettie Johnson - June 22, 2015

. . . The country is now in a panic mode after a sick lady from neighboring Guinea was intercepted by security officers at a checkpoint deep inside Liberian territory, raising fears that the episode of 2014 which brought Ebola to Liberia is threatening to reemerge. . . .

. . . A Global Communities Surveillance Officer disclosed that although they are carrying out temperature checks on commuters, people using illegal entry points are moving without going through health screening. . . .

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frontpageafricaonline.com - Front Page Africa - by Henry Karmo - June 24, 2015

Monrovia - Tolbert Nyenswah, Deputy Health Minister for Disease, Surveillance and Epidemic Control has told the Liberian Senate not to order the closure of Liberia’s borders with neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone. According to the Deputy Minister during his appearance before the plenary of the Liberian senate unlike the past health authorities in Liberia have on ground a robust team deployed at the various borders with Guinea and Sierra Leone to track suspected Ebola cases coming and leaving Liberia. . . .

He claimed that closing the borders with those countries could worsen the situation because in his words people could secretly enter into the country at one of its many unofficial borders without being noticed by health authorities, something he said could worsen the situation. Nyenswah told the senators that the Ministry of Health of Liberia in partnership with international partners has currently deployed at these borders a team of health practitioners tracking suspected cases. . . .

. . . He confirmed that a lady from Guinea crossed into Liberia showing symptoms of Ebola and she was arrested and sent to the Emergency Treatment Unit (ETU) where she was tested and proven Negative of Ebola. . . .

. . . Nyenswah said the situation was arrested at the Belefeneh check point in Bong County where the surveillance team suspected that the Guinean lady was bleeding from the nose and the officers decided to isolate the three riding on the motorbike.

“This virus will enter Liberia if Liberians are not careful bringing sick people from Guinea and Sierra Leone. If the checkpoint did not have the thermometers or knew that bleeding is one of the symptoms that lady could have entered and if that case was Ebola that would have been a difficult one for us”. Nyenswah expressed that it appeared more troubling when a Liberian woman arrived from Margibi to receive the sick woman from Guinea to help her seek medical treatment in Liberia,” he said. . . .

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