By Jana-Astrid Schäfer and Fatoumata Njei
GENEVA – At a recent meeting about Liberia’s COVID-19 Incidence Management System, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for the immediate removal of the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) from the country’s COVID-19 Response, because the MCC has no function in healthcare and no experience in outbreak or pandemic response.
This stance of the WHO and donors vindicates the infectious diseases expert, Dr. Dougbeh Chris Nyan who came under barrage of attacks in April from the Monrovia City Mayor and several Liberian government ministers for his professional expert advice against the involvement of the MCC, a non-medical entity, in the COVID-19 response.
The award-winning inventor, Dr. Nyan, advised that the “COVID-19 response be conducted by knowledgeable and skilled professionals with public health transparency and accountability.”
MCC COVID-19 recruits
According to sources attending the meeting, “stakeholders will release no more funds to the Liberian government’s COVID-19 Programme unless the MCC is completely removed from the pandemic response.”
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Monrovia- Meanwhile, the Communications Officers working with the Incident Management System battling the Coronavirus in Liberia, Hassan Kiawu told www.newspublictrust.com Thursday morning (May 21, 2020) that the six thousand persons recruited by the MCC was never part of the COVID-19 Response.
Initially, it was announced to the public that the 6,000 MCC recruits were to be involved in contact tracing and other COVID-19 response work.
But speaking via mobile phone, Mr. Kiawu said initially the MCC wanted them to be a part but he said they are operating directly under the Monrovia City Corporation.
Credible source close to the health system in Liberia say international partners including the IMF, World Bank and WHO resisted the involvement of the MCC at the very onset, therefore pressuring national health authorities into keeping them out of the COVID-19 response.