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 Dozens of schools reopened, in a sign the outbreak is ebbing in
Liberia, once its epicenter. The epidemic has killed more than 9,000
people there and in Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The closures were yet another setback for a country whose health
system and economy, based on diamonds, coffee and cocoa, were
devastated by the virus.
At the peak last summer, Ebola patients were collapsing outside
overflowing hospitals but now there are only a handful of new cases
a week.
In the sunny courtyard of a Catholic school in the Congo Town
district of the capital Monrovia, hundreds of students gathered to
hear the principal's welcome. Medics took children's temperatures
and told them not to stand too close together.
"I feel very great being in school in the first day, most especially
after a long period of time waiting for this day," said teenager
Faith Sayeh.
But in the classrooms there were some empty desks as parents kept
their children at home while other schools remained closed.
"Only one of my seven children I have registered," said Lindsay
Seakor, who lost her job last August due to the epidemic and says
she cannot afford to pay for books and uniforms.
Some schools opened on Monday but had to send students home by
mid-morning because teachers failed to turn up. George Wuo, a
regional director of the ministry of education, said all schools in
the country would have to open by March 2 or face fines.
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Neighboring Guinea reopened most of its schools in January, but some
parents have withdrawn children amid rumors schools were infected
with the virus.
Sierra Leone hopes to open schools by the end of next month. Around
30 have been converted into treatment centers and will have to be
emptied and decontaminated first.
In Liberia, some of about a million enrolled students have been
following lessons by radio.
"Authorities in the three countries are looking at catch-up sessions
and cancelling some school vacations. It will be challenging," said
Sayo Aoki, education specialist in Ebola Emergencies at the U.N.
Children's Fund.
(Additional reporting and writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Matthew
Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Roche)
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