Children trickled back to school in Liberia from yesterday onward, after the restart of lessons that had been delayed for months by the deadly Ebola outbreak, as the country begins to turn the page on the deadly epidemic.
The school term began a day after the leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone, in their first trips abroad since the peak of the epidemic, vowed at a summit in Guinea to eradicate the virus by mid-April.
Ebola, one of the deadliest pathogens known to man, is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting.
Unicef — the United Nations’ agency for children — said pupils were washing their hands before entering schools and were having their temperatures checked.
The agency has been at the forefront of introducing safety measures to combat the spread of the virus, which has claimed more than 9,000 lives across Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
All three countries have seen a dramatic drop in infections compared with the peak of the epidemic in September and October.
Guinea’s President Alpha Conde and his Liberian and Sierra Leone counterparts Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Ernest Bai Koroma made a pledge to achieve “zero Ebola infections within 60 days” after day-long talks in the Guinean capital Conakry on Sunday.
Teachers have been trained to implement and monitor the safety measures, while soap and other hygiene materials have been distributed and mass mobilisation campaigns on Ebola prevention have been conducted nationwide.
Optimism that the worst is over has been tempered in Sierra Leone and Guinea, however, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) reporting the number of new Ebola cases rising for the second week running.
Transmission remains “widespread” in Guinea, which saw 65 new confirmed cases in the week to February 8, and in Sierra Leone, which reported 76, according to the WHO.
Liberia, which has recorded the most deaths and was hardest hit at the peak of the epidemic, is leading the recovery, reporting just three new confirmed cases in that same week.
