29 August 2022, Monrovia:  Building on the gains of the previous conferences, the theme for this year, “Maintaining Public Health during a pandemic,” drew the attention of various stakeholders. The conference comes at a critical point where Africa and the rest of the world continue to face global challenges, including health pandemics and epidemics, climate change, increasing populations and economic challenges, and the role of science and research in combating and minimizing the consequences of these global problems cannot be overemphasized.

The three-day conference from 29-31 August 2022 aimed at promoting top-level research and brought together a multi-disciplinary group of experts to present, and exchange breakthrough ideas relating to public health. It created an ideal platform to share experiences, foster collaborations across institutions (including academia), and deliberate on emerging research, as well as find answers to essential questions that would lessen these occurrences and the challenges accompanying them.

Serving as one of the keynote speakers and representing Dr. Mashidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Peter Clement, WHO Country Representative in Liberia, said the scientific conference comes at a time and builds on ongoing reflections on how to improve the delivery of health services during COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The pandemic has challenged local, national, regional, and global capacities to prepare and respond. Countries have deployed necessary strategies to control the viral transmission. But, the success of these control strategies depends largely on how an existing health system is organized, governed, financed, and coordinated.” said Dr. Peter Clement.

Closing up on his address, Dr. Clement reminded the audience that Liberia has committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), however the progress is slow to attain the goals by 2030. “Acceleration is required, and this can be achieved through more integration (multi-stakeholder approaches, primary health care, health emergencies preparedness ,and response architecture), alongside rigorous service delivery, robust joint funding, monitoring, evaluation, and governance- underpinned by the principle of equity. “narrated Dr. Clement.

Reflecting on his experience in Liberia during the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak, Dr.  Thomas Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, who was also one of the keynote speakers, said “When communities, the private sector, and the government come together, they can end the most devastating health threats”.

For his part, Dr. Francis Kateh, Chief Medical Officer, Liberia, thanked the NPHIL team for keeping the lights of Dr. Emmet E. Dennis on.  “Today, we are about to discuss what is critical to life- that is science.”  exclaimed Dr. Kateh to the audience.

 He further mentioned that because public health is crucial, the decisions and policies made by experts have long term effects, therefore its integral to use the data generated to inform decisions.

The Emmet Dennis National Scientific Conference was established by the National Public Health Institute of Liberia in the quest to provide a platform to share scientific knowledge. This initiative was embraced by all stakeholders supporting health in Liberia. The conference was named in honor of Dr. Emmet Dennis, who served as the first Director of the Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research, which he founded.

Overall, 90 abstracts were selected from 3 countries: Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria, after being reviewed by a panel of experts/ scientists. All oral and plenary sessions were aimed at encouraging the residents and graduates to advance in their scientific research exploits and public health practice. The conference ended with an award ceremony and recognition of outstanding presentations.