March 5 was a big day in Beatrice Yardolo’s life – she was discharged from a Chinese Ebola treatment center in Monrovia.

Government officials, diplomats, the media — everybody wanted to see the woman who was then declared and widely celebrated as Liberia’s last Ebola patient. As it turns out, that was premature.

Liberians started counting down 42 days, the period that has to go by without a single new infection until the World Health Organization can declare a country Ebola-free. That countdown stopped on March 20 – when there was another new case, making Yardolo’s story a reminder that Ebola is far from over.

“And since my return, on that day, there were whole lot of journalists. People from different medias, you know, there, getting information from me,” she said describing life since her release from the treatment center.

 

Victory postponed

But 15 days later, Monrovia’s Redemption Hospital took in and then transferred a woman infected with Ebola. Liberia had to postpone its victory over the deadly virus.

 

Despite being Liberia’s “almost last Ebola patient”, Beatrice Yardolo’s story is no less compelling – a reminder that Liberia has to remain vigilant.

“If he had not touched that woman with his naked hands, he wouldn’t have gotten sick. But because he got sick, his sister, his brother, all went around him and touched him. And you know, and they, too, got into problem. And some of them had to die,” she said.

 

How she became infected

It started with Steve, her 32-year-old son, who worked at an Ebola treatment center. One day after work in January, when he had already undressed from his protective suite, he helped a sick woman who had just arrived at the hospital out of a car. A month later, her son Elijah was dead and so were two of his siblings. And Beatrice Yardolo came down with the virus.

 

“I’m just grateful to the almighty God for preserving my life,” she said. “Though our children have gone, we’re still grieving. But we try gradually to overcome it. We’re trying to overcome the pain, the sorrow and whatsoever.”

Since the outbreak began in West Africa last year, Ebola has killed more than 10,000 people. Liberia was hardest hit, with nearly 4,300 deaths out of just over 9,500 cases.

Ebola not only has shattered families like the Yardolo’s, it has devastated Liberia’s economy, with businesses and trade shut down and the health-care system overloaded.

Now, as the infection rate closes in on zero, the government is preparing for a period of transition from last year’s crisis to its path of development prior to Ebola.

Recovery plan

Liberia’s Information Minister Lewis Brown recently told VOA the government’s post-Ebola recovery plan looks first to create jobs and achieve food security by bolstering farming and infrastructure.

The government also is trying to address the bigger issue of jobs for the 70 percent of the population that is under age 35 – most of whom have no jobs.

“And this is why a significant pillar in our post-Ebola recovery is to be able to give our young people the skills they need to take advantage of the new development that is part of our new rebuilding effort,” Brown said.

The Ebola crisis particularly has focused attention on health care.

 

“We want to recreate a health system. We’ve started at a small-scale level prior to this outbreak where you had community participation. You had people going house to house, especially in rural areas, taking on immunization programs in limited ways. Now we must expand that,” Brown said.

Those plans have yet to reach Yardolo, despite her fame as the almost last Ebola patient. Her family shares a dilapidated house with three other families.

A charity group supplied them with some food. Other than that, they haven’t received any support. When President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf came to the house, she promised change.

 “When the president came, she said she will send social welfare here.”

 

But for now, her government is occupied with ensuring that Ebola remains contained.
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