{"id":9257,"date":"2025-04-16T13:02:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T18:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=9257"},"modified":"2025-04-16T13:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T18:02:07","slug":"ex-foreign-minister-publishes-liberias-first-insider-ebola-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/04\/16\/ex-foreign-minister-publishes-liberias-first-insider-ebola-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Foreign Minister Publishes Liberia&#8217;s First Insider Ebola Account"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-xl\/africa\/top-stories\/ex-foreign-minister-publishes-liberias-first-insider-ebola-account\/ar-AA1CTpRl\">MSN<\/a> In a powerful moment of national remembrance and literary pride, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf joined government officials, survivors, and dignitaries at the National Museum to launch &#8220;Stepping Up to the Plate: Liberia&#8217;s Untold Ebola Story,&#8221; a gripping new book by former Foreign Minister Olubanke King Akerele. The book chronicles the human spirit and nationwide coordination that defined Liberia&#8217;s response to the deadly 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, offering a first-hand account of sacrifice, leadership, and collective resolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recounting the chilling early days of the crisis, former President Sirleaf reflected: &#8220;In 2014, I got a call that some Liberians had crossed into Upper Lofa from Guinea showing strange symptoms. We didn&#8217;t know what it was&#8230; We had never experienced an infectious disease of such intensity.&#8221;<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Expand article logo\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.msn.com\/staticsb\/statics\/latest\/views\/icons\/textExpand_filled.svg\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Continue reading<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She recalled the government&#8217;s initial border lockdowns and restrictions on movement, which, while well-intentioned, led to tragic incidents, including the death of a civilian in New Kru Town. Despite these setbacks, she praised the surge of unity that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-xl\/africa\/top-stories\/ex-foreign-minister-publishes-liberias-first-insider-ebola-account\/ar-AA1CTpRl\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MSN In a powerful moment of national remembrance and literary pride, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf joined government officials, survivors, and dignitaries at the National Museum to launch &#8220;Stepping Up to the Plate: Liberia&#8217;s Untold Ebola Story,&#8221; a gripping new book by former Foreign Minister Olubanke King Akerele. The book chronicles the human spirit and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebola"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9258,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9257\/revisions\/9258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}