Liberia recorded its first COVID-19 case on March 16, 2020 and as at May 28, 2020 the country has recorded 269 cases and 27 deaths from 10 out of the 15 counties in Liberia including Lofa, Gbarpolu, Grand Kru, Margibi, Maryland, Monsterrado, Nimba, River Gee, Grand Bassa and Sinoe counties. Prior to this first recorded case, the government of Liberia acted quickly in January, drawing on the vital lessons of the 2014 Ebola epidemic, to prevent the COVID-19 from entering Liberia through instituting thorough hand washing measures and testing of temperature at the various points of entry into the country. The government also put in place quarantine measures for any individual coming from countries that had recorded over 200 cases.
Interestingly, most of these recorded cases and deaths have occurred in communities where heath facilities are not easily accessible, road networks are poor and in counties where SESDev work.
In response to the pandemic, SESDev, with support from the Waterloo Foundation through Forest Peoples Program (FPP) and Rights and Resources Initiatives (RRI), in July of 2020, conducted COVID-19 awareness in fourty (40) project communities from Sinoe, Grand Kru, Maryland and Lofa accordingly. Awareness materials such as posters, face masks and cartoons of klin soap were distributed to the community to enable them fight the pandemic.
SESDev sensitized these communities to take preventive measures as laid out by Ministry of Health and the National Public Health Institute of Liberia.
