Liberia needs two years to regain its economic footing after it was battered by the Ebola epidemic, as it moves to boost access to electricity and infrastructure and diversify the economy, Liberia's president said in an interview on Saturday.
Liberia had been slowly rebuilding from a civil war that ended in 2003 when the Ebola epidemic erupted more than 18 months ago. The disease has since killed 4,800 people in Liberia, and a total of 11,000 people in West Africa.
"Our target is to get it done in two years," Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said of the hoped-for economic recovery, in an interview on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Liberia was declared free of the Ebola virus for a second time on September 3, entering a 90-day period of heightened surveillance.
Johnson Sirleaf said she was "concerned" about the continued Ebola risk, and said the government could be doing more to educate Liberians, including advocating safe sex.