France Fulfills Promise of Immediate, Tangible Help

In a rather swift fulfillment of promised support made by France President Emmanuel Macron to Liberia, the French government has The France mobilized emergency humanitarian assistance, from its available stocks, to offer Liberia

 56,800 rapid antigenic tests and 4 OSIRIS3 transport respirators. 

Last week in Paris, President Macron promised Liberia an immediate donation of some 40,000 test kits and several respirators. 

“France is closely following the recent evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic in Liberia,” said a statement signed by  Michaël Roux, Ambassador of France to Liberia. “The French authorities heard and studied the needs expressed by the Government of Liberia and reacted promptly.”

French President Macron had earlier assured President Weah France’s support to Liberia would be tangible so that it is felt by the citizens directly. 

According to the Ambassador, the rapid antigenic tests will allow the Liberian Ministry of Health to reorganize and decentralize the detection tests for COVID-19, and to relieve the congestion of the National Reference Laboratory which conducts the PCR tests, to speed up responses to users and to encourage COVID-positive people to self-isolate more quickly. This should thus help to counter the spread of the epidemic.

OSIRIS3 transport respirators, made in France and designed by Air Liquide, will equip ambulances and make safer the transport of people developing severe forms.

“The rapid mobilization of this assistance was made possible by the visit to Paris of His Excellency Dr George Manneh Weah, President of the Republic of Liberia,” Ambassador Roux noted. “The President of the French Republic, HE Mr. Emmanuel Macron, received him at the Elysée Palace on Thursday, July 1, 2021 and expressed the friendship and solidarity of the French people with the Liberian people in these difficult times.”

While in Paris, President Weah participated in the 2021 Generation Equality Forum conference on June 30, where he met leading international stakeholders of diplomacy and development. The First Lady of Liberia was also received on June 30 by Mrs. Brigitte Macron, with whom several health and social issues were discussed.

“The French Embassy in Liberia would like to thank the Delegation of the European Union to Liberia, which on June 25th activated ‘the European civil protection mechanism’ for Liberia, which covered part of the transport costs of this humanitarian aid,” Amb. Roux said. “The Embassy also thanks Air France and Bolloré Logistics, who have made special arrangements to facilitate the immediate delivery of this aid to Liberia.”

This assistance, the Embassy notes, takes place within the framework of significant past, present and future assistance from France to Liberia to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Since July 2020, the French Development Agency has been carrying out, with funding from the ‘Common Health Initiative’, a €3 million (US$3.7 million) project in support of the national plan to fight Covid-19 in Liberia. This project, led through the French NGO Action contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger), has provided substantial assistance to the Liberian health system, in Monrovia as well as in the counties. Listening to this, this project has adapted, for example, by financing the new electric generator of the National Reference Laboratory, installed last March, and an ambulance in Nimba County, delivered in May. An extension of this project is under study.

“In addition, France finances 18% of European aid to Liberia. The European Union has provided budget support of €14.95 million (US$18.2 million) in 2020 to Liberia for the fight against Covid-19,” the Embassy says. “The European Union (the EU, the European Investment Bank, the Member States) is also the leading donor, to the tune of more than US$2.7 billion, of the COVAX facility which enabled, after the delivery in March 2021, the launch of the vaccination against COVID-19 in Liberia. France is very attentive to the need to relaunch the vaccination campaign in order to contain and overcome the pandemic and is pleading for new deliveries of vaccines to Liberia, through GAVI and COVAX, as soon as possible.

“France continues to act, bilaterally and through multilateral channels.”

The French Embassy has also extended congratulations and encouragement to all the personnel of the Liberian health system, doctors, nurses, logisticians, laboratory workers, whose mobilization has been observed, at the risk of their own health, to fight against the pandemic.

The Embassy says it offers its condolences to the families of the victims and expresses its solidarity with the Liberian people.