By Umaru Fofana
Weeks after excoriating the international community for what he said was their poor response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma has lavished praise on them assuring the end of the outbreak is near.
Speaking to Politico yesterday shortly after holding talks with the visiting Ghanaian president and Chairman of ECOWAS, John Mahama, Koroma said "I see a lot of efforts being put into the fight now. I must commend the international community, they are now coming in".
Smiling broadly, a far cry from his mood when he lambasted the outside world at State House in August, the president said the international community "are not only in the fight but also involved in the preparation work".
He said Britain was establishing an Ebola treatment centre at Kerry Town on the Freetown peninsula, the Chinese were setting up one at Jui just outside Freetown and the Americans had "increased their presence" through the Centres for Disease Control.
"I will say that their presence has improved" he said, hoping the collaboration would continue to "ensure that [by] the next couple of weeks we will be able to contain Ebola".
The president said the disease would be soon be a thing of the past.
"I am sure that we will get Ebola behind us very soon" he said, assuring the country would get back to "normalcy in December".
By normalcy, he explained, Ebola would be contained and his government would return to implementing those "development programmes we were carrying out before the May outbreak" .
He said Ebola would be a thing of the past earlier than the six-month timeframe given by the French charity MSF and other agencies.
Earlier President Koroma told the visiting ECOWAS Chairman that "all is not lost" amid Ebola even though he admitted that the outbreak had caused "a lot of disaster for us". He cited the hundreds who have died including health workers and lamented that the economy was slowing down.
While thanking President Mahama for his visit and donation of food items to the country, Koroma said he hoped "your visit here will give [the world] assurance" that Sierra Leone was a safe place to visit adding that "the issue of the closure of our borders and suspension of flights should be reconsidered".
This, he went on, would only compound the situation.
President Mahama told the president and his government that his visit was "a visit of solidarity to reassure you that all of us stand with you in your effort to roll back the scourge of Ebola"
He criticised the suspension of flights to and from the country calling it "extreme".
"Now that there is proper screening [at the airport]...the time has come to look at all this again" Mahama said.
He went on that ECOWAS had drafted new guidelines which had been sent to all member states to study and try to abide by in relation to the outbreak. They include removing travel restrictions on citizens in Ebola-affected countries.
The Ghanaian president emphasised that there was a difference between isolation and ostracism saying the actions by some governments amounted to the latter.
He warned that food shortage was imminent, with the outbreak having disrupted farming in the affected countries, which he said would inevitably impact the region's economy.
He urged the UN World Food Programme to have this in mind and start planning now.
As part of his country's contribution, President Mahama announced 150 tonnes of food support to the three countries comprising powdered cocoa, rice and vegetable cooking oil. While some of it was delivered the rest he said would be sent later due to the suspension of airlines to the country.
The visiting president urged countries that have pledged to the fight to make real their commitments saying "the fight against Ebola is now and the longer we procrastinate...the more danger we face in terms of it spreading wider".
He also called on the world to send in volunteers and health workers to help deal with the situation, and praised Cuba and China for sending in health personnel.
"It is not enough to provide protective clothing when you don't have the people who will wear them and go in there to provide support" Mahama said.
(C) Politico 16/08/14
