Liquid TelecomGroup has donated $250,000 (about Rwf172 million) toward preparedness and prevention of the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever in the country.

The donation, handed over to the Ministry of Health yesterday, is to supplement government’s prevention plan.

Globally, at least 13,567 people are known to have contracted the Ebola virus in the latest outbreak in which more than 5,000 have died, the World Health Organisation says.

West African countries Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are the worst affected.

Speaking after receiving the cheque from Liquid Telecom Group officials, the Minister for Health, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, expressed appreciation, saying prevention is everyone’s responsibility.

 "The funds will be used in strengthening capacity through medical, social prevention and mobilisation and awareness campaigns, so it’s a good support,” she said.

" This is an example of a situation where the private sector comes in to support government efforts. We hope this example will be followed by many in the country and on the continent.”.

Liquid Telecom Group chief executive for East Africa Sam K. Nkusi said the donation is in the spirit of ensuring public safety.

"Prevention is better than cure; Ebola has become a global catastrophe and we want to be part of prevention efforts. Everyone should be part of the prevention including the business sector,” Nkusi said.

"When I was talking to our chairman, he said that this is a contribution whose success will be measured by what you don’t see as a person.

"This is part of our corporate social responsibility and if you are doing business, you do it better with a healthy population… a healthy nation is a wealthy nation. We are giving back to the people. This is also in the spirit of public-private partnership.”

Liquid Telecom is the largest single company that rolls out fiber optic in the sub-Saharan Africa.

The company has of recent been active with its corporate social responsibility.

Part of its recent activities include airlifting of over 10 Rwandan children with cardiac complications to India for operation, and paying tuition for more than 100 Genocide orphans at different universities in the country.

Liquid Telecom has also provided solar lanterns to families in remote areas and the company is currently working on a project of digitising Genocide archives to ensure they are well preserved.

 There has been no reported case of Ebola in Rwanda; however, the government has stepped up prevention efforts.

The ministry has so far trained a total of 3,430 healthcare workers to handle the deadly Ebola disease in case of an outbreak and carried out countrywide awareness efforts.