GE Foundation Supports Fight against Ebola with $2m

By Emma Okonji

Global infrastructure company, GE Foundation has announced a whopping $2 million donation to strengthen the fight against Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

With the donation, West African countries that presently battling with the deadly virus disease may now heave a sigh of relief.
President & CEO, GE Foundation Africa, Mr. Jay Ireland, who made the announcement at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York, USA recently, said the donation would help launch an effective coalition, led by Partners in Health and Last Mile Health against Ebola in the affected countries.

In conjunction with the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Ministries of Health, Ireland said the coalition would execute the project in four rural counties/districts of Grand Gedeh, Rivercess and Nimba in Liberia as well as Kono District in Sierra Leone.
According to him, “GE is proud to support the coalition with Partners in Health to scale–up Ebola response efforts and rebuild rural primary health systems in West Africa. Fighting Ebola requires a comprehensive strategy – from Ebola treatment in hospitals to revitalising primary health care and community-based services–that could transform how the world responds to epidemics and rebuilds public health systems.”

Under the scheme, GE expects the coalition with partners in health to train and support 800 community health workers to carry out community-based education, prevention, surveillance/monitoring and maintaining essential health services in 500 villages in the sub-region.
Ireland disclosed that Partners in Health would also work with Wellbody Alliance and other private sector partners on a broader response effort in Sierra Leone.

The coalition has a cumulative experience of over 40 years in Liberia and Sierra Leone partnering with health ministries across the world to strengthen health systems.
The current Ebola outbreak is the largest and first in West Africa. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said over 5, 800 people have contracted the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. WHO recently said more than 2,800 people had died in West Africa as a result of EVD infection.  

Although Nigeria was once infected by the EVD through a Liberian health worker, Mr. Patrick Sawyer who sneaked into Nigeria few months ago, where he eventually died, the Nigerian government, through her ministry of health s able to contain the deadly disease after killing about seven people in Lagos and Port Harcourt. Since then various control measures have been put in place, and the awareness has raised in Nigeria.

GE is a global technology company, finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance, as well as in building and empowering the world.

Culled from: http://www.thisdaylive.com