GLOBAL HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT

editor's note

Over a decade ago we first wrote about the work of a charity called Last Mile Health. Ebola was raging in Liberia, where this group works. Using community health workers to check on residents in remote spots, they played a critical role in tracing the spread of the virus. Their work helped those at risk get diagnosed and, if need be, treated.

NPR's Hannah Bloch spoke to Lorenzo Dorr, who supervised Last Mile Health's community health workers during that crisis.

Dorr told NPR:

"There's been a scarcity of health workers to reach each area, each town and each community in Liberia. The rural health strategy is to establish the community health program to serve as primary health care providers for patients. The community health workers mobilize on vaccination and immunization campaigns and health-related programs, providing first aid to community members when they are sick, encouraging pregnant women to seek health care and mothers to seek postnatal care. Each community health worker caters to 250 persons."

Describing the challenges presented by Ebola, he said: "We should be prepared before a case is identified, not chasing after it after hell breaks loose. We should be ready to shoot at it as soldiers. If we don't fortify our positions, the enemy will infiltrate our camps and it will be difficult to regroup. But if we fortify our positions, we don't allow our enemy in."

This week, Partners in Health was named the 2026 recipient of the biggest humanitarian honor for nonprofit groups -- the Conrad N. Hilton prize, which comes with a $3 million award.

We spoke to the founder of Last Mile Health, Dr. Raj Panjabi; to the current CEO, Lisha McCormick, and to one of the many community health workers who are part of the staff, Genesis Whegelee (pictured above, at right). Starting with 17 workers in Liberia, the group now has 20,000 community health workers in four African countries.
 
Read the story here.

Marc Silver,
Editor, global health