Tanzania ‘Ebola heroes’ honoured
Vice President Mohammed Gharib Bilal hands over a trophy to Prof Philemon Sarungi who was among the leaders in the medical profession who attended the regional medical officers’ Annual General Meeting held in Dar es Salaam yesterday. Left is permanent secretary in the ministry for Health Donan Mmbando and deputy minister Stephen Kebwe. During the same function the seven Tanzanian health workers who volunteered to work in Ebola-hit West Africa were honoured for their outstanding contribution in public health. PHOTO |SAID KHAMIS
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The medical staff were feted for taking a front-line role in fighting the Ebola outbreak which has so far claimed more than 11,000 lives in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Dar es Salam. Seven Tanzanian health workers who volunteered to work in Ebola-hit nations were yesterday honoured for their outstanding contribution in public health service.
The medical staff, who include nurses and doctors, were feted for taking a front-line role in fighting the Ebola outbreak which has so far claimed more than 11,000 lives in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Dr Theopil Malibiche, Dr Justine Maeda, Dr Godbless Lukas, Shaaban Saasita and Dr Herilinda Temba as well as Ms Loveness Isojick and Dr Samafilan Ainan, were awarded certificates in public health for working in high risk countries.
During the ceremony, the World Health Organisation’s representative to Tanzania, Dr Rufaro Chatora, urged the government to strengthen disease surveillance and border control systems in order to curb such epidemics which are related to air and marine travel.
The deputy minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Kebwe Steven Kebwe, said the government would use the health workers in fighting epidemics such as the recent cholera outbreak that has so far killed at least 10 people in Dar es Salaam since it was reported about a month ago.
Meanwhile the Liberian government reported that a 17-year-old boy died of the tropical fever on Sunday after spreading it to two other people, in the first cases of infection for more than three months.
“It is disturbing for us, we are trying to get to the root cause, how it happened. We have not got a full report yet,” Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said, in her first public pronouncement on the new outbreak.
