(ANS - Monrovia)- With the outbreak of Ebola still in progress and the World Health Organization (WHO) foresees thousands of new cases in the coming weeks, there are young people, Christians and Muslims, belonging to the group "Dominic Savio and Don Bosco" continue to unconditionally commit themselves to protect the local population, encouraged also by various cases of healing from the virus.

“At home, my friends and family members were extremely worried about me in this kind of situation. They advised me, warned me and ordered me to come back to Nigeria but I said to myself, this is a situation that needs the contribution and help of everybody no matter how little and since God has given me life and good health, I am going to use it for the good of others,” bluntly asserts Josephat, the founder and leader of the group.

The social context in which these young people have to operate is always very difficult, because, even if all the news and measures are already being made known, people still do not believe that Ebola exists. Instead, they criticized and accused the government and health ministry for seeking to steal money and limit the wildlife (because, the government warns that there will be no more eating of bush meat, monkeys and bats, which are the main carriers of the virus).

On the other hand, the government started taking serious measures only after a government official, Patrick Sawyer, died of this virus in Nigeria (at the end of July, while the first outbreak of this deadly virus already occurred in Liberia in the month of March).

In this recent time, there have been good news: there are about 34 people confirmed of being cured of the Ebola recently. From the testimony of many of them, the main thing that facilitated and helped greatly in their cure was a proper feeding and care by the health workers. This has motivated our group to extend our mission directly to the Ebola patients. Since we cannot reach them in person, we donate food stuffs, sanitizers, mineral water, money (mainly to support, appreciate and motivate the health workers), chlorine for water purification, soaps and powder soaps to them through the Archbishop’s Charity contribution. We buy those items and send them to our parish priest who turns them over to the archbishop and finally from the archbishop to the various Ebola isolation centres around Monrovia. The archbishop organized this charity as the archdiocesan contribution to the fight against Ebola in Liberia.

According to the statistics reported by the information minister on 3rd of September, there are about 1,015 suspected and confirmed cases of deaths by the Ebola virus in Liberia. The number of cases is more in Monrovia than any other county in Liberia. The good news is that the two counties are free of the virus in the country at the moment; and the county that was visited by the group has a reduced number of Ebola cases now.

Posted on 09/10/2014