Chiefs’ Tamba Hali lends his star power to help fight Ebola virus

When the Chiefs recently approached Tamba Hali about an opportunity to help a foundation looking to assist Ebola patients in his native Liberia, he certainly did not need to think it over very long.

“You can’t really overthink that one,” Hali said.

So on Wednesday, the Chiefs’ star outside linebacker lent his public support to Heart to Heart International, a humanitarian group dedicated to expanding global access to health care. Heart to Heart plans to open and operate a 70-bed Ebola treatment unit near the country’s capital of Monrovia, where Hali was born.

“I’ve been blessed to be in this country and get an education and play a wonderful sport, but there’s a crisis going on in Liberia,” Hali said at a news conference in Lenexa. “It’s hard to talk about it. … But people are dying, and they’re dying at a rapid rate.”

Liberia is the country hardest hit by the West African epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, as it has reported 3,834 Ebola cases, with 2,069 deaths through Oct. 3. Some 44 percent of those cases were reported in the past 21 days.

“It’s only the right thing to do, speaking out about the crisis that’s happening there,” Hali said. “People contract the disease and just die. We’re looking for people to support (this project).”

Hali, who moved away when he was 10 years old and the country affected by war, still has family members in Monrovia, but to his knowledge, none have contracted the deadly virus. His father, mother, and four siblings live in the United States.

“It’s always a concern,” said Hali’s older brother, who is also named Tamba. “You wake up in the morning and you see a phone call from Liberia, you’re always like ‘Is everything OK, is everything all right?’”

The Halis’ roots in Liberia, in addition to Hali’s status as a prominent NFL star, made the decision to bring him into the fold an easy one, said Heart to Heart CEO Jim Mitchum.

“We understand this is about people, and the best way to relate to it is to understand that you and I meet Liberian people,” Mitchum said. “We may not recognize them on the street but they’re here in KC, they’re all over the place. There’s a relationship between the United States and Liberia that goes back a long, long way.”

Liberia was colonized in the early 1800s by freed slaves from America, but some are apparently arguing for placing a ban on travelers from Ebola-infected countries, a notion that has been rejected by top U.S. government officials.

“We don’t have the opportunity here to put a fence around West Africa and just say ‘Let it burn itself out,’” Mitchum said. “That’s not how we deal with people. That’s not how we’d want to be treated ourselves. Going there and helping out is absolutely the right thing to do and right thing to do now.”

Mitchum said the clinic, which will be staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses, will cost roughly $1 million a month to operate. It should be completed by November.

“Authorities have determined that Liberia alone needs 27 Ebola treatment units to handle the population,” Mitchum said. “Currently, there are only six.”

Hali said his mother, father and brother primarily stay in touch with family and friends back in Liberia, though he does give back when he can.

“I do everything through my parents because they have a church down there and they go back and they’re able to go to different communities and basically minister and be able to give clothes back, food, barrels of vitamins to the people that need that there,” Hali said.

This is just something else he could do, Hali said, and he and his older brother — who attended the news conference wearing a bright red shirt with his home country’s name on the front — appreciate Heart to Heart’s efforts.

“It means the whole world to us,” his brother said. “When you look at what’s going on, people dying by the day while the medical support and financial support is not there, it hurts. You have a hole in your heart for the country.

“You see youth that’s supposed to be leading us tomorrow just dying by the day, it’s a painful situation.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2014 at 7:13 PM with the headline "Chiefs’ Tamba Hali lends his star power to help fight Ebola virus."