Monrovia - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is working closely with the Government of Liberia through its National Public Health Institute in contributing to training and peaceful humanitarian intervention with focus on the COVID-19 awareness, sharing of epidemiological surveillance data, and training of port health staff assigned at the local border communities on prevention and control measures. In Liberia, Points of Entry (POE) are areas of focus for importation of infectious diseases including EVD, Marburg and COVID-19. Liberia has 45 official points of entry including 8 designated, and over 131 unofficial points of entry. In a recent report of the Cross-border meeting supported by IOM on November 19, 2021, between Liberia and Guinea, the National Public Health Institute of Liberia, has stated that there are a total of over 5000 communities including borders, 896 healthcare facilities, 93 health districts and 15 county health teams. 

The meeting hosted relevant health professionals, county Superintendents of both countries and IOM Staff including the Country Coordinator. In his brief statement, the County Superintendent of Sanniquellie commended IOM for fostering cross-border health and safe human mobility. This is important, he added that both countries population interact daily in trade and socio-cultural activities and there’s always a spillover effects when one country has an outbreak or lockdown of borders. 

As a strategy to revitalize collaboration and the one-health approach between border health districts, the two countries have committed to the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) that encourages to cooperate by entering into bilateral or multilateral agreements or arrangement concerning prevention or control of the international transmission of diseases. In order, to reinforce this health regulation, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) – a protocol of agreement between the regions of N’ZEREKORE (Guinea), TONKPI (Cote d’Ivoire) and NIMBA (Liberia) was signed on August 2021. The agreement serves to define the modalities of cross-border and regional collaboration, sharing of public health information and response to public health events at national, intermediate, and local levels; for public health events with an increased risk of cross-border transmission.

Liberia has one of the highest confirmed COVID-19 infection rates amongst health workers in Africa, with health worker cases accounting for 16% of all confirmed COVID-19 cases, even though the overall COVID-19 confirmed cases were relatively low. As of 17 November 2021, an additional total of 186 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including 14 Healthcare workers (HCWs) were reported according to the Liberia County Health Surveillance Unit and 953 contacts generated and investigated in NIMBA (Liberia). Of the total 5,884 Ivorians seeking refuge in Liberia tested for COVID-19 through enhanced surveillance activity, 57 tested positive of COVID-19 with zero deaths cases. This is unsurprising as many health care workers and health volunteers at the border communities lack PPE and health facilities and are unable to implement satisfactory infection prevention and control (IPC) measures due to inadequate logistical supplies and capacity, and many health facilities also lack the needed safe water, sanitation, and hygiene standards and basic infrastructures to detain and monitor suspected persons or cases of infectious diseases. Strengthening IPC measures especially at ground crossing health facilities remain crucial, as it is unclear how long the COVID-19 pandemic will last. However, in keeping with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), IOM Liberia has supported the production of essential and conflict sensitive materials, awareness messages, and locally produced nose masks and hand-washing equipment to establish trust and confidence amongst communities’ dwellers, security actors and local authorities and to champion the prevention and spread of COVID-19 within border communities. 

On December 2020, during the donation ceremony of these essential COVID-19 Response materials, the Statutory Superintendent of Buutuo District in NIMBA stated, “Today is a very special time and not just words only, but we have seen first-hand the action and this action is about something durable meant to move and buttress or boost the anti-virus campaign activities that the COVID-19 is affecting the entire world. The coming of IOM with COVID Response materials and hand-washing equipment, we have decided as your leaders serving you not to just receive these items  but to invite you as direct beneficiaries to prove to the world indeed that the presence of the United Nations here not just by saying but that funding they gave to requisite organizations such as the UNPBF is being put into use and today you have seen it. We hold heartedly receive these items and will monitor and supervise the use of them”.

As border communities strive to fight and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, what remains critical is the adverse eruption of normal farming activities; livelihoods and income of single parents in trade activities affecting particularly women, girls, and youth in cross-border communities. Single parents, and teenage girls between 13 -19 years who earned for themselves prior to the corona outbreak have exhausted their savings during the sit-down-home restrictions. The lack of basic skills and the inability of these women, girls, and youth to feed themselves and restart petty businesses has eventually exposed them to perpetrators; crimes and violence, and more particularly women to sexual gender-based violence in hard-to-reach border communities with no security presence or basic infrastructures.