Ebola Virus Knocks On Nimba’s Gate

-Citizens Urged Not To Panic

By Esau J. Farr

Report from health authorities in Liberia has revealed that specimen of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has been found in a bat in the northern part of the country, Nimba County.

According to the Director of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL), Tolbert Nyenswah, a test result from 500 bats in Nimba County has revealed that a virus of Ebola has been found in one of the bats tested there.

“A test conducted in 500 bats has revealed that a virus of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has been found in a bat in Sanniquelle Mah-District, Nimba County,” Director Nyenswah, told a MICAT briefing on Thursday, January 24, 2019 in Monrovia. MICAT is the Ministry of Information, Culture Affairs and Tourism.

“The test was conducted from 2016 to 2017, but the result was recently released to us by a team of investigators,” Mr. Nyenswah told the conference.

If there is nothing for Liberians to remember in 2014, it can’t never be the issue of the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as the virus penetrated, ransacked the country in all sectors taking away about four thousand persons’ lives and making many children orphans while others were forced into being single parents.

However, authorities of the NPHIL has called on Liberians not to panic as the discovery of the virus in a bat is not an outbreak and that Liberia is ten times safer than pre-Ebola era.

A release from the NPHIL read, “A combined research effort by the National Public Health Institute of Liberia, the US-Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the EcoHealth Alliance has found that one of the bats that was taken from the Sanniquellie-Mahn District in Nimba County was found carrying the Zaire ebolavirus. But this in no way should cause any panic as there is no known case of Ebola in Liberia amid this finding.

We can proudly say that Liberia is 10 times safer now than pre-Ebola in preventing and detecting diseases.

This is consistent with the National Public Health Institute of Liberia’s (NPHIL) mandate to prevent and control public health threats and events; the National Public Health Institute of Liberia over the last 365 days has made remarkable achievements that guarantee public health safety”. TNR