WASHINGTON, January 7 (Sputnik) — Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea will reopen their schools in the near future, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) said.
“The governments of the three most affected countries have announced their intention to reopen schools,” UNMEER said in a report issued Tuesday.
On December 31, the President of Sierra Leone said schools would reopen soon in the country. The governments of Liberia and Guinea similarly announced that schools would start working in the near future, the UN mission said.
In support of Liberia’s school reopening plan, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) initiated procurement of 15,000 thermometers for Liberian schools “to ensure effective health screening of all individuals upon entry to school campuses,” according to the report.
Last December, UNICEF declared 2014 a “devastating” year for millions of children around the world due to ongoing conflicts and the Ebola outbreak.
In Liberia and Sierra Leone, schools have been closed since September while in Guinea schools closed as early as March 2014. About 5 million children in West Africa do not attend school due to the Ebola virus decease outbreak, according to UNICEF’s estimates.
The current outbreak of the Ebolavirus started in Guinea in December 2013, spreading to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali in 2014. According to the latest World Health Organization data, more than 8,000 people have died in the outbreak.
