Health Minister Lauds IAEA

Liberia’s Minister of Health, Dr. Williamina Jallah has lauded the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for her thought to establish a radiation safety regulatory infrastructure in Liberia to help government; the process by which sources of electromagnetic radiation can be used for diagnostic purposes, medicine for cancer treatment and also an industry to verify the quality of road constructions etc.

Dr. Jallah said the growing need for the establishment of the radiation safety regulatory infrastructure in the country cannot be over emphasized since it was a dying necessity for her ministry.

According to a release issued on Thursday, August 2, 2018 and signed by Ms. Felecia Gbesioh, director of communication at the Ministry, Madam Jallah noted that it is very important to have an atomy safety regulation in place, which she said as a modern country, Liberia has been behind. She said despite Liberia being part of the IAEA since 1962, it’s disheartening to note that a lot of people do not know what this instrument is about.

The release said Min. Jallah made the statement recently at the opening of a four-day workshop for the establishment of the radiation safety regulatory infrastructure held in the conference room of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Oldest Congo Town.

The workshop was sponsored by the IAEA in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and it brought together over fifty participants drawn from various line ministries of government as well as civil society organizations and students of several universities in the country.

The release continued by stating that the Health boss encouraged participants to take the workshop seriously so as to enable them understand the reason why the establishment of the radiation safety and security infrastructure in the country is important.

The Liberia Health Minister, the release indicated expressed her fervent hope that the visit of the IAEA advisory mission in the country should not be one of those visits that had not yielded results.

For his part, the head of delegation of the IAEA advisory mission to Liberia, Dariusz Mroz said his organization’s mission has the objective to assist Liberia in building and strengthening the safety infrastructure for the control of sources of ionizing radiation that are used in medicine, industries and in the agricultural sectors.

The release further explained that the IAEA head of the delegation pointed out that the visit of the advisory mission is a follow-up to similar mission that took place back in 2016. According to Mroz, the role of the advisory mission is to find out how the recommendation of the 2016 mission has been implemented in Liberia in order to create an infrastructure that would regulate and control radiation sources.

The release concluded by quoting Mroz as disclosing that the advisory team comprises four radiation safety and radiation security experts.