You are here

Government

Liberia: Two-Hour School in Lofa County - Students in Class 8-10am

ALLAFRICA  by Mae Azango                                                                   June 10, 2015

Children in Gorlu, Salayea District Lofa County, are only in school two hours a day, or not in school at all. The reason? Their teachers are either running behind their salaries, or volunteer teachers are trying to get their names on the government's payroll.

Matthew Gahndolo, the school's principal laments, "The government of Liberia says, free and compulsory primary education, but what is the use when the children come to school by 8:00 a.m. and leave the class room after 10:00 a.m. to go on the farms, because their teachers are running behind salaries"

The situation of teachers leaving the classrooms and running behind salaries, and lack of qualified teachers to teach the children in rural Liberia, is not only restricted to Lofa County, but nearly all of the fifteen counties in Liberia. With the situation becoming increasingly alarming and dreadful, the government has also witnessed aggrieved health workers also on the streets demanding the Ebola risk benefits as well.

Read complete story.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201506100717.html

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

G7 states vow to wipe out Ebola but offer little concrete action

REUTERS                                                      June 8, 2015

KRUEN, Germany - Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations pledged on Monday to wipe out Ebola but offered little in terms of concrete action, disappointing non-governmental organisations.

G7 leaders said in a communique at the end of a two-day summit in the Bavarian Alps that they would offer help to at least 60 nations, including in West Africa, over the next five years to help prevent outbreaks from turning into epidemics.

More than 11,000 people have died in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa since the first reported case in March 2014. The G7 said the crisis showed it was necessary to enhance the world's ability to prevent, detect and respond to such emergencies.

The G7 nations said they would work together to combat future epidemics and boost or establish strategies to quickly deploy teams of experts with a variety of skills via a common platform, but their communique was thin on detail.

Florian Westphal, General Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Germany, said the leaders had done little to ensure epidemics would not spiral out of control in future....

Red complete story.

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Stopping the next pandemic today

OP-ED  WASHINGTON POST,  June 7, 2015

By Ron Klain, the  White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February.

....To the extent there is discussion of improving the international response to epidemics, the focus has been on the need to reform the World Health Organization. Such reforms are badly needed, but even a fully effective WHO will not close the most gaping holes in the world’s epidemic response system. Even if the WHO did a better job of recognizing outbreaks that pose a risk of epidemic and alerting the world that action is needed, it does not have the substantial response function needed to combat such an epidemic. Recent discussions about creating a WHO response function — assuming that the agency could be trusted to manage it — rely largely on overburdened and underfunded nongovernmental organizations to staff a response. Thus, any new WHO response capacity will lack military-style mobile hospitals ready to be deployed; battalions of medical personnel with accompanying security support to isolate and treat the infectious and the ill; or a medical airlift capacity to move patients to places where they can get help...

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Guinea extends Ebola emergency measures

AFP     JUNE 6, 2015

CONAKRY--Ebola-hit Guinea has extended a health emergency declared in March until the end of June, citing the persistence of the deadly virus in the country, the presidency said on Saturday.


Workers walk at the Donka Ebola treatment center on May 2, 2015 in Conakry (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)

The decision was taken on Friday by President Alpha Conde, the statement said, after he met his counterpart from Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma.

In August last year, Conde declared a health emergency for the whole of Guinea. Then on March 28, 2015, he decreed a "reinforced health emergency" for five provinces in the west and southwest of the West African country.

"Given the persistence of the epidemic... in parts of Guinea and Sierra Leone," Conde and Koroma decided "to extend the reinforced emergency measures in their countries until June 30, 2015", the Guinean presidency said.

Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-extends-ebola-emergency-measures-201127353.html

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Ebola shows how our global health priorities need to be shaken up

Now the threat from Ebola seems to be receding, rich countries must not revert to their former myopia. Listening to other countries’ needs and investing in women and children would be a start

THE GUARDIAN Commentary  by Chelsea Clinton and Devi Sridar                May 6, 2015

Amnesia has set in across the world as the fear and global attention given to Ebolarecedes. But this is not a new phenomenon. With Sars, avian flu, swine flu and Mers, there were repeated calls to fix the global health system to avoid previous mistakes. We cannot continue to be surprised when a health crisis emerges and we need to start to take a long-term, inclusive perspective to ensure health security across the world. Myopia was a key factor in the failure to respond to Ebola in a rapid and effective way.

There are three immediate steps that should be taken:

Read complete article.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/06/ebola-global-health-priorities-chelsea-clinton

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Security Council hears Liberia briefing as country anticipates being declared ‘Ebola-free’

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                          May 5, 2015
Liberia is expected to be declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization (WHO) within the week if no more new cases of the disease are discovered before then, the top United Nations official in Liberia said Tuesday  as she briefed the Security Councl.

Karin Landgren, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Liberia and Head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), briefs the Security Council. UN Photo/Mark Garten

“After almost 14 months spent under the cloud of Ebola, this will be joyful news for the country,” said Karin Landgren, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Liberia. “Liberians and their Government, with support from the UN and ineternational partners, have gotten firmly ahead of the epidemic. Now, all Liberians must remain vigilant.”

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Ebola crisis revealed "major fault lines"

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION by Moneeza Walji                                    Mayl 4, 2015
The call to action for the Ebola outbreak extended far and wide, with the epidemic now having more than 26 000 cases and claiming more than 10 000 lives, but the response has raised questions about underlying problems that hinder health care in some countries and about who was best positioned to respond.

At a recent session of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health in Boston, Dr. Peter Piot, one of the discoverers of the Ebola virus, said the outbreak and crisis in West Africa "has revealed major fault lines in the local societies and in the international system; in how we conduct research and how we develop new drugs and vaccines and also in trust and the way that international aid and development and cooperation is operating."

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

The Ebola Outbreak of 2013–2014: An Assessment of U.S. Actions

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION Study  by, and

Executive Summary

 This report presents the observations, findings, and recommendations of a task force formed to examine the global response and the response of the U.S. government (USG) to the 2013–2014 Ebola outbreak and global transmission. Specifically, the task force sought to derive lessons learned and insights from the USG response to the Ebola outbreak both internationally and domestically with the goal of crafting recommendations to improve the government’s ability to respond to natural disasters, acts of bioterrorism, and various public health crises related to significant outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics....

The report’s major recommendations include:

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Turning the Page on Ebola

Joint Statement by Presidents Alpha Condé  of Guinea, Ernest Bai Koroma  of Sierra Leone. and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia 

 PROJECT SYNDICATE   COMMENTARY                                                                                       April 16, 2015

....The uncontrolled spread of the disease exposed the shortcomings of our national health care systems, as well as regional and global institutions’ weak capacity for coordination and effective response. Simply put, we were ill prepared to cope with, much less prevent, an outbreak on this scale.

We bear a collective responsibility for the thousands of lives lost to Ebola and the tens of thousands affected by the disease. And, today, thanks to institutional improvement and adaptation, we are closer to winning the fight against Ebola. Although the disease has not been contained and eradicated throughout the region, its spread has slowed; now we have to start planning our recovery, which must include strengthening the national, regional, and international systems that protect our people’s lives and futures....

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Obama: World must remain ‘fully engaged’ against Ebola

UPDATE with testimony to Congress.

Obama says Ebola-fighting goal is to prevent any new cases

(Scroll down for earlier story and link to Congressional testimony by administration officials)

ASSOCIATED PRESS       by                                              APRIL 15.                                    

WASHINGTON — Citing significant gains in fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Obama declared Wednesday that the international goal now is to prevent any new cases of the deadly virus in the afflicted region....

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, back right, meets with, from left, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Guinean President Alpha Condé, in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 15, 2015, to discuss progress made in the international Ebola response. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

Subscribe to Government
howdy folks