MONROVIA, May 6—The Monrovia City Corporation-MCC has given US$52,000.00 (Fifty-two thousand United States dollars) to people they termed as ‘contact tracers.’
According to sources at the MCC, there are 6,000 contact tracers that were currently recruited by the corporation to help in the fight against the COVID-19.
It can be recalled that the MCC announced recently that it would recruit individuals from each community around Monrovia as contract tracers who would help process data on related health issues; such as effecting regular temperature checks, accessing situation that show semblance of the COVID-19 virus.
It added that “all samples collected will be sent to MCC Data Center at our HQ; MCC Data Analysts will then send findings to NPHIL for action.”
But the action of MCC came under sharp criticism from several Liberians, including senior medical doctors. One of such was Dr. Dougbeh Christopher Nyan, Prominent Liberian infectious disease scientist based in the United States of America.
Many Liberians said it was wrong for MCC to embark on such action because it would be waste of resources. Rather, it would be prudent to rehire those who were trained during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
He said at the time that “these would-be MCC recruits have no training in Public Health, Medical Science, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics to carry out such professional healthcare and pandemic prevention duties.”“It is like putting a taxi driver in the cockpit to fly a jet plane.”
Dr. Nyan continued: “The National Public Health Institute of Liberia should be utilizing medical students, nursing students, science students, practicing nurses, doctors and trained biostatisticians to conduct contact tracing, isolation, treatment, and processing of healthcare data.”
The amount which was collected in phases from a bank(name with held) in Monrovia and Buchanan, said “one of the big men from here drove all the way to Buchanan to collect the money from a bank. He got some from in town here before driving there.”
When contacted the Communication officer at the MCC, Mr. Pekeleh Prosperous Paye Gbuapaye, he promised to respond but failed to act. TNR
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