ECOWAS hosts post Ebola Virus Disease meeting

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has convened a conference on post Ebola Virus Diseases in Liberia. The meeting, which started on Monday, 10 April, brought together health workers from various African countries to support member states in working together to enhance the quality and accessibility of biological diagnosis and to strengthen control of epidemic prone diseases.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting, the Director General of WAHO, Dr. Xavier Crispin, said the main objective of the forum is to access where the regional body is in terms of implementing key decisions reached by the Heads of State.

He said some key decisions made in the past three years include putting in place the ECOWAS original center for disease control and member countries want to know how far the region has gone on that, including training of staff.

He WAHO is keen on strengthening the health care system in all member states as well as assessing funds mobilization. Also speaking, Liberia’s Minister of Health Dr. Bernice Dahn, said the meeting is organized against the background of stock taking on status implementation of the recommendations and lessons learned from the recent EVD outbreak.

She said experience from the EVD continuous to remind and challenge the entire sub-region that it is at risk to any disease outbreak and therefore,should be adequately prepared.

Minister Dahn noted that Liberia is still recovering from the economicshocks that haveimmensely affected its domestic resource mobilizationefforts, adding that it is a tedious journey to get the economy back to pre-EVD status. Editing by Jonathan Browne