“During the Ebola scourge we were busy fighting ourselves at the beginning because we had to knowledge of what has befallen us. But today Sierra Leone health officials now have the experience to combat any outbreak because of the continuous training we have undergone in Public health.”
The CMO said this training of Leadership and Management Training in Global Health Security is one that his ministry is very happy about because it has brought the China and US CDC together with WHO and other partners to work together to help train the leaders in the various hospital to get them in line for any outbreak in the future.
He called on the various health experts from across the country to take the training seriously and inform that that China has given the MOHS 29 scholarships in various medical fields to go and train in China.
Ambassador Hu Zhangliang in his address said no country can be totally secure and free of worry when facing epidemics. He said from the beginning of 2014 to March of 2016, the outbreak of ebola scourge in West Africa included 27,000 medical cases and more than 11,000 deaths.
“During the Ebola outbreak, China was the first international partner to dispatch health experts and medical aid to help the relevant countries fight against Ebola. In this process, China donated a Biosafety Level-3 laboratory for disease control and prevention to Sierra Leone.”
The Ambassador said in the past four years, China CDC experts have kept in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation of Sierra Leone to maintain and run the P3 laboratory, conducted surveillance of the severe pathogens from patients with fever and diarrhea, trained local technical personnel, and provided technical support in the surveillance or emergency response.
“Today’s training is one of the most important measures to help local health officers improve their competence and skills in leading and managing their healthcare teams. I’m proud of the contributions made by China CDC to our bilateral public health cooperation and to the promotion of health level of the local people.”
Ambassador Hu thanked the Ministry of Health and other international partners for their help and support to the Chinese CDC staff in the training, and said since 1973, the Chinese government has 20 batches of medical team to Sierra Leone.
“Also, China-Sierra Leone Friendship Hospital and 34 Military Hospital where China Medical Team has become very important medical workers in the country by helping these two areas develops.”
World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Sierra Leone Evans Majani Liyosi said for them they are always ready to work with all groups to make sure that such outbreaks are combated.
“The lessons we learnt from the past is what we use to reshape the future and such training is what WHO is looking forward to because it helps prepare the ground for countries and partners to be able to work as a team whenever there is an outbreak. All players must come onboard and be prepared for cross-border issues because these outbreaks will always spread in the future.”
Dr. Brigette Gleason representing US CDC said the collaboration between them has yielded so much positive results and said they will continue to work together.
“For us we concentrate on two areas – Surveillance and Workforce development, which is why we are happy that this leadership and management training is going. We have worked together in these two areas before and will continue to collaborate to put Sierra Leone in the right position for the future.”
China CDC lead Dr. Xiaofeng Liang said the training is in line with what happened in 2014 as they believe that Sierra Leonean doctors must be in the lead with the experience to manage any outbreak in the future.
He said about 30 participants will take part in the training and it will last for two days with facilitators coming from MOHS, China CDC,US CDC and WHO.