Africa’s first elected woman president, who stepped down four years ago, recognizes the errors in the initial response to coronavirus because they replicate the mistakes made when EBOLA hit West Africa in 2014 and killed more than 11 000 people.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says her 12 years at the helm in Liberia – and particularly dealing with EBOLA – taught her that the crisis can only be saved with courage and concerted action.

The United Nations World Health Organisation, the United States government and her counterparts the Guinea and Sierra Leone defeated EBOLA together.

She’s confident that with solidarity, COVID 19 will also be beaten

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There were 25 338 migrants that made this journey in the first 19 weeks of this year.

628 died attempting it.

Italy,  with 41% of the traffic, once again took in the lion’s share of African migrants.

This was followed by Greece with 38%, leaving Spain with 21%. 

This year’s number is less than half the number who landed in the same period last last and about 13% of the number of migrants in 2016.

The International Organisation For Migration says the largest number of migrants coming to Europe from North Africa are Tunisians, followed by Eritreans, Nigerians, Sudanese, Pakistanis, Malians, Guineans and Senegalese.

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The remoteness of the area, which has made access difficult for them, militates against the haemorrhagic disease spreading.

This is the ninth Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the virus was identified there 42 years ago.

Medical teams say they’ve developed a successful model for preventing the spread of the disease carried by contact with human body fluids.

They’ve also learned valuable lessons from the world’s worst Ebola outbreak that killed 11 000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea four years ago 

Teams from the World Health Organisation and Medecins Sans Frontiers are on the ground in Bikoro, in northwest DRC, applying their experience.  

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Vigilance has been tightened at airports with thermometers being used to screen passengers.

Nigerian immigration authorities recall their experience in 2014 when the world’s worst  Ebola outbreak killed 11 000 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

An infected Liberian diplomat trying to get to the United Stated brought the virus into Nigeria.

Eight Nigerians who came into contact with  died including the doctor who first treated him.

Nigerian authorities were praised for the way they prevented a more devastating Ebola outbreak four years ago.

Health Minister Isaac Adewole says from experience gained then, they’re tightening vigilance at all entry points especially airports and screening passengers.

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With 21 suspicious illnesses and 17 deaths, the World Health Organization has released $1M in emergency funds.

Two of the five samples taken from the iIkoko Iponge health facility near Bikoro in Equateur Province these past five weeks have tested positive for the viral haemorrhagic fever Ebola.

There have been 17 deaths from in  the northwestern DRC.

Local authorities have limited health facilities and rely on international aid and supplies.

A group of specialists from the WHO and Medecines Sans Frontiers are moving to the area to scale response efforts.

Ebola killed four people in an outbreak in the Congo last year. 

In 2014 Ebola killed 11 000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. 

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The run-off poll scheduled for next Tuesday has been delayed by the Supreme Court while allegations of electoral fraud are investigated.

Attempting to head off the political crisis, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf hosted Guinean President Alpha Conde and Togolese leader Faure Gnassingbe .

Conde is currently serving as Chairman of the African Union, while Gnassingbe chairs the Economic Community of West African States.

They met with George Weah and Joseph Boakai , who are in the run-off contest to succeed Johnson Sirleaf as president.

It turns out that Boakai has also backed the claims of electoral fraud in the October 10 poll where he was beaten by Weah.

The Supreme Court has summoned Liberia’s electoral commission to explain any irregularities

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The report in the New England Journal 0f Medicine  is the first full account of a large-scale effort to test what could be the first vaccine against Ebola.

The outbreak of the highly contagious and often deadly virus killed more than 11 000 people, mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, as it swept West Africa from late 2013 to 2016.

The phase II study involved 1 500 people in Monrovia, Liberia.

After one month, 84 percent of recipients of the first vaccines developed an antibody response. At one year, 80 percent still had this protection.

For the second vaccine , 71 percent developed an antibody response, and 64 percent still had such a response at one year, when the trial ended.

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Their owners could face millions of dollars in fines.

The ships were seized by inspectors from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau.

They found them to be violating regulations on catching protected fish and using nets with small holes to facilitate bigger hauls.

With that equipment a Chinese ship can catch in a week what it takes local fisherman a year to haul in.

The arrests came after a two-month regional patrol on a Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza.

The Greenpeace ship carries local inspectors from West African countries often hamstrung by budget and technology constraints.

A recent study by Frontiers in Marine Science estimated West Africa’s annual losses from illegal and unregulated fishing at $2,3 billion.

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The bloodless and belated departure of Yayha Jammeh after he lost an election in Gambia is an undoubted African success story.

Even the light-fingered denouement – with Jammeh taking $11 million from the state coffers into exile with him – has not taken the icing off the cake.

That decorative delicacy was provided by the intervention of neighbours of this thin silver of a country that has just experienced its first democratic change of government.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) made it immediately clear to Jammeh that it would not tolerate his staying in power when he contested the fairness of the December 1 election he lost, by his own admission, to Adama Barrow.

It made a number of unsuccessful demarches on Jammeh, urging him to step down before the victor’s scheduled inauguration date of January 19.

Jammeh declined offers of asylum in Senegal, Morocco, Mauritania and Guinea.

He hoped to wait around for the supreme court to consider his arguments about the unfairness of the election.

The court reminded him that he sacked half the judges last year and said they would be able to consider the matter before May.

ECOWAS decided to play hard ball. The grouping sought approval by the United Nations Security Council to use force, if necessary, to move Jammeh.

Senegal, which surrounds Gambia on three sides, and Ghana, moved troops to the border to show the region’s seriousness.

If Jammeh  had any doubt of this, the ECOWAS forces crossed the frontier and deployed in the capital Banjul.

They gave Jammeh a deadline of noon last Friday to either go or be forcibly removed.

The defeated president successfully requested an extension of this deadline while he spoke to Presidents Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz of Mauritania and Alpha Conde of Guinea.

He’s been abandoned by key members of his cabinet and finally by his military commander.

The game was up for this man who took power in a bloodless coup 22 years ago.

Eventually Jammeh loaded a string of luxury cars onto a Chadian cargo plane.

Then, seen off by a small group of hardliner, he boarded a plane with President Conde and headed for Guinea.

Gambian, who could not believe their good fortune had been demonstrating their delight at Jammeh’s imminent departure for day.

They cheered ECOWAS troops patrolling the capital.

Barrow, who was inaugurated at the Gambian embassy in Senegal, says he will go home within the next week once his security can be assured.

He has his work cut out tracing the $11 million that Jammeh looted from the public purse.

He also has to get back the tourists who are vital to Gambia’s economy.

Alone with more than 46 000 Gambians, the tourists quit  the country when military action to move Jammeh looked likely.

So, chalk one up to ECOWAS’s unlinking determination to see that democracy triumphed.

Consider too the benefits of other African regional groups showing the same courage and application against the hard-to-move leaders who have cynically disregarded their constitutional limitations on power.

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President Adams Barrow is awaiting assurances about his security before leaving neighboring Senegal and returning home to role the country.

Adviser to President Adama Barrow, Major Ahmad Fatty says they’re trying to evaluate the exact loss to Gambia’s public purse.

He says Gambia is in financial distress.

Luxury cars and other costly items were seen being loaded onto a Chadian plane  before Yayha Jammeh boarded a plane for Guinea with that  country’s President Alpha Conde.

Troops from a number of West African countries are deployed in the Gambia capital Banjul waiting for the return of Barrow.

They’re controlling strategic points to guarantee his safety and that of his people.

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