Stop rejecting Ebola survivors-Health Minister warns

The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is warning Liberians to stop rejecting Ebola survivors, stressing that the survivors did not infect themselves with the virus, but rather it is an unknown sickness that they encountered from other persons.

The deadly Ebola virus, which entered Liberia from neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone, has posed serious threat to the entire West Africa with Liberia being the most affected country, losing medical practitioners, including health care workers, Doctors, nurses and ordinary citizens.

Speaking Monday, October, 13, 2014 at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism during a regular press briefing, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare Dr. Walter T. Gwenigale, said the fact that thousands of people are dying from the virus, family members should also thank God for some of their relatives, who went into the Ebola Treatment Unit or (ETU) and come out alive instead of rejecting them.

Dr. Gwenigale said, rejecting survivors make them look like outcasts, which he said, is not good. He said they’re coming back into homes should bring pride and happiness to every family member whose relatives contracted the virus, saying it is wrong to stigmatize others who went through tough times of medical treatment.

“I think the best thing to do is to encourage such people, because they have more ideas about the danger of this virus”, the Health Minister advised. According to him, the acceptance of Ebola survivors in various homes will help in reducing family members’ stress because survivors will explain how they got treated at the various centers, and what to do when any of their relative, or next door neighbor contracts the virus.

Meanwhile, Minister Gwenigale has also clarified that the burial team is not segregating among dead Ebola patients by cremating some and burying others as is being misconstrued. He said dead bodies are only being cremated in Montserrado County, not for all the fifteen counties.

He told reporters that burial teams in every county and community are doing their work as mandated and any family who doesn’t want the burial team to take away Ebola body must make a request, or show a specific place far from a well, or a swarm which will be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency or (EPA) in order to bury people who died from Ebola.