Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been appointed to an Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR) to evaluate the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, APA can report on Saturday.
According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Panel will be co-chaired by former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark and former President Sirleaf.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who made history as Africa’s first elected female president, led Liberia for 12 years including during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak that killed nearly 5,000 people in her country.
“President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf effective and astute leadership role during the crisis as head of the Presidential Advisory Council on Ebola, qualified her as an eminent person to evaluate the independence of the global COVID-19 response,” said Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah, Senior Research Associate, Department of International Health at the John Hopkins School of Public Health.
Almost all the more than 11,300 people who died during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa were recorded in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. It was challenging to global public health and posed an existential threat to the populations of these three West African countries.
In January 2021, the Executive Board will hold its regular session, where the Panel’s work will be further discussed; and in May of next year, at the World Health Assembly, the panel will present its substantive report.
ABJ/APA