About 175 quarantined household heads and over 220 vulnerable residents including Ebola survivors and elderly people in Needowein, where Liberia’s newest Ebola outbreak is being contained, have received 396 solar powered lights and
one-hundred and twenty (120) Wind-up solar radios from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The solar lights were procured through a partnership with Japan’s Panasonic Corporation, while the wind-up radios is part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Lifeline Energy, based in South Africa.
The items are to provide solar energy and promote access to information within vulnerable communities.
The donation is in support of a coordination mechanisms being maintained by the Ministry of Health to promptly respond to abrupt outbreaks of the Ebola Virus Disease and strengthening surveillance within communities.
In the wake of the most recent EVD attack in Margibi County, quarantined homes are being provided food and non-food supplies to help encourage them to remain in their respective homes over the 21 day incubation period to avoid a rapid spread of the disease.
The solar lights and radios are to help lighten up the quarantined homes and to increase access to information since residents are unable to conduct normal routine activities due to the prevailing circumstances.
Needowein is a small community along the Roberts International Airport highway with three hundred and seventy-five (375) houses and a population size of six-hundred and sixty-three (663) inhabitants.
The community is subdivided into six blocks with over seventeen (17) houses and more than hundred and seventy (170) contacts quarantined as a result of the recent confirmed Ebola case involving a 17-year-old student. The number of confirmed cases as of Thursday July 9 has been put to five. This includes the 17 year old boy.
UNDP Country Director Kamil Kamaluddeen says, “the important thing to know about Ebola is that, it is not in the hospitals that we are going to win the fight, rather it’s in the communities that we are going to win.”
Dr. Kamaluddeen, turning over the solar lanterns and radios, urged the community residents to work together in ensuring that the virus is swiftly contained.
He applauded community members for putting in place the structures and ideas required to help contain and defeat the disease.
“We are happy to see the level of work being collectively done to fight the virus in this area and the country as a whole” said UNDP Country Director.
The Chairperson of the Needowein Ebola Task Force Gemaiman Khasa expressed appreciation to the donors (Panasonic and Lifeline Energy), through UNDP for the donation and said it would help lighten and entertain the quarantined families.
Madam Khasa praised community members for the level of cooperation being accorded members of the task force in fighting to contain the Ebola virus in their area.
UNDP is leading Active Case Finding efforts in the community. A team led by Dr. Mosoka Fallah, Coordinator of the UNDP supported Montserrado Community Based Initiative Project (MCBIP) has duplicated the Active Case Finding methodology in the Needowein community.
According to UNDP MCBIP Field Associate Siedoh Freeman, her team was able to mobilize 70 Community volunteers to assist in identifying possible Ebola contacts and providing relevant information used to quell the spread of the disease.
As was done in Montserrado County, active case finders, comprising community members, conduct door-to-door daily visitations to follow up on all possible contacts and ensure that sick people are taken from the community in a timely manner, through referrals.
