New disease outbreak over

National Public Health Institute Director, Tolbert Nyensuah, says the outbreak of the [meningococcal] disease in Liberia “is most likely over right now”, encouraging people to go about their normal businesses.

“What I can safely say and confidently is that there is no known transmission of this disease ongoing right now, because we’ve seen the incubation period of the disease”, Mr. Nyensuah said Monday, 22 May on a local radio here.

The disease broke out in Sinoe County, southeast Liberia during some funeral activities and subsequently hit other counties, including Grand Bassa and Montserrado, leaving several casualties in a short period of time before subsiding.

Mr. Nyensuah says the time of infection and the time of the onset of the symptom are between two to ten days, and Liberia has gone more than 15 days with nobody being reported with any sign or symptom of the disease in the 91 health districts here.

According to him, the good news about the disease is that it is vaccine-preventable and also has therapy drugs that can be used to treat infected persons. He cites cold hands, chest pain, severe headache, vomiting, chills, muscle pain, and abdominal pain, among others, as signs and symptoms of the disease.

“We want to encourage you [that] when you have these kinds of signs and symptoms, go to the nearest facility”, he cautions.Nyensuah says that government now has the capacity to detect, prevent and respond to disease outbreaks here. He says “our system” was tested in the latest outbreak, and Liberia got international assistance in the process.

By Winston W. Parley -Editing by Jonathan Browne