Speaker Key
TJ Tarik Jasarevic
RL Rémy Lamah
BD Bernice Dahn
AF Abu Bakarr Fofanah
MK Marie-Paule Kieny
GH Gunilla von Hall
CW Claudia Witte
TM Tom Miles
MI Miriam
NM Nuala Moran
MC Maria Cheng
TJ My name is Tarik Jasarevic and I will be moderating this virtual press conference from the headquarters of the World Health Organization and this press conference is dedicated to the High Level Meeting on Building Resilient Systems for in Ebola-Affected Countries. This meeting is taking place over two days here in Geneva. As our guests have to go back to the venue where the meeting is taking place, we will try really to keep this within one hour. Today, with us, as it has been announced in a media advisory, are Honourable Minister, Dr Rémy Lamah, Minister of Health of Guinea; Honourable Minister, Dr Abu Bakarr Fofanah, Minister of Health and Sanitation, Sierra Leone; Dr Bernice Dahn, Chief Medical Officer of Liberia; and Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, our Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation.
Just a few little things before I give the floor to our guests. As always, audio file will available upon the end of the briefing, a transcript a little bit later. I just want to draw attention to all those who are here and those who are dialling in that some interventions will be done in French. We do not have a capacity for a consecutive translation and, being time-conscious, we will have to move on. If some questions from English speaking journalists come for our French speaking guests we will do translation at that point. Also, just for our journalists who are here with us in Geneva, there is another event in this room taking place a little bit after this press briefing so we are kindly asking you to move. We have some other spaces you can use to do your reports but you will have to leave this room at 2:30, latest. So, without really more talking from my side I will give the floor to Honourable Minister, Dr Rémy Lamah, Minister of Health of Guinea. Mr the Minister, you have the floor to address the journalists who are present here and those who are listening to you over the phone.
RL Okay. Thank you. On behalf of His Excellency, Mr Leblanc, Mr Lafoulec, Professor Vacounday, the government, and the entire Guinean population, I would like to salute the broad support of the international community towards our country, which currently faces a social crisis. It is therefore the first message I wanted to address. Then, I want to inform you about the epidemiological situation in our country. You might recall that on 27th March 2014, our government announced the outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever in our country, the Ebola virus, but well before that, the first cases began mid December. It came to a big surprise for us due to the ignorance of the disease from our caregivers and due to the lack of response strategy in case of public health emergency. There are some factors that contributed to spread the disease as well. There is the factor related to the inability to make a diagnostic in order to take actions on this epidemic. The other factor is the weak epidemiologic monitoring which has not sound the alarm when there were unexplained deaths in the community. Another significant factor, which is one of the causes of the outbreak of the disease, is the reluctance of the community who, for the first time, faced an unknown disease. This ignorance of the disease gave rise to rumours among the population. The cause of the reluctance is due to the concept of acceptability from the population who faced the disease. This reluctance led to the use of traditional healers. In our country, traditional healers are the first to whom we turn to. The population has no choice as there was an ignorance, a lack of acceptability of this disease. Therefore, they turn to the traditional healers who claimed to be able to cure the disease. Another factor, which is the cause of the outbreak, is the constant travel of contacts from a point A to a point B. So, all of these factors have contributed to the outbreak of the disease. The last factor but not the least is the late response from the international community to support the countries affected by the disease. It is only when European countries have been affected by the disease that the international community declared that there was a social crisis. So, today, epidemiologically, if I count confirmed, suspected and probable cases, there is a total of 2333 cases. From now on, there are 1450 deceased persons, all cases reported. Regarding the health care providers who are on the frontline, I would like to congratulate all health care providers who currently face a daunting disease, a merciless and unabated killer. I take the opportunity of this gathering to congratulate the caregivers, to thank them for their bravery. Nowadays, in my country, there are around 130 caregivers and staff who have been infected by this disease and 62 have died. 62 died to save the population’s life. This is the current epidemiological situation in my country.