Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone shift to joint tactics in tackling Ebola and recovery

The presidents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone met yesterday in Conakry, in a move to unify their efforts in tackling the Ebola epidemic, with the virus still to be defeated even as the number of new cases is declining overall.   

During the one-day extraordinary summit organized by the Secretariat of the Mano River Union (MRU) comprising the three countries and Cote d'Ivoire, they committed to achieving zero cases within the next 60 days for all three most-affected countries, according to the final communiqué issued at the end of the meeting. Cote d'Ivoire, represented by its Foreign Minister Charles Koffi Dibby, has never registered any Ebola cases despite its proximity to the other three countries.

To reach and stay at zero infections, the MRU leaders committed to focusing on infection prevention and control, social mobilization, community engagement, surveillance and cross-border cooperation.

As they strive to rid their countries of the virus, Presidents Alpha Conde of Guinea, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, Ellen Jonhson Sirleaf of Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire's Dibby "strongly" called on the international community to provide direct budget support and debt cancellation for the three most affected countries. They said that small and medium size businesses should be supported in order to create jobs and boost economic resilience. They also welcomed the World Bank's proposal for a post-Ebola Marshall plan and called for accountability of the responders.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Mission for Emergency Ebola Response (UNMEER), who addressed the summit, warned that Ebola could "rebound in the region if communities become less vigilant and donors withdraw their support too early.”

"To stem this disease, the weeks ahead of the rainy season in April are critical," UNMEER's chief said, adding that the rains will both complicate and slow down the response which has been working so far.

Thanks to the robust and massive global response, there were 145 confirmed new Ebola cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone during the week preceding the summit versus 500 cases in the last week of September, when there was fear of an exponential transmission of the virus. Predictions at the time were as high as 1.4 million infected people by January this year if a global massive response was not put in place, leading to the creation of UNMEER.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed attributed part of the success in controlling the spread of the virus to the leadership of the affected countries' governments and that of the Mano River Union's Secretary General, Hadja Saran Daraba Kaba. "If the number of cases continues to decline, there will come a time when UNMEER will exit because your success will be ours,” he told the leaders. 

While UNMEER and its partners have been calling for sustained efforts, post-Ebola recovery is indeed high on the agenda of the affected governments and the international community. The Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Helen Clark, whose agency has been tasked by the UN Secretary-General to lead the recovery effort is currently touring the region to assess needs, while the European Union is organizing a related meeting in Brussels on 3 March. 

The three countries are working to harmonize and consolidate their requirements to be presented in Brussels by President Johnson Sirleaf, whom they have designated as their spokesperson for the event.   

Since the start of the epidemic in West Africa, there have been over 22,000 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola with 9,000 deaths.