From Gawker
Sierra Leone will ban all public Christmas and New Year’s celebrations in an effort to curtail further spread of Ebola, Agence France-Presse reports. The government’s Ebola response unit told reporters on Friday that soldiers would be deployed to keep people in their homes.
Public gatherings had already been banned, The Guardian reports; these new restrictions are intended to keep people in Freetown, the nation’s capital, where Ebola is rampant, from traveling to see family members elsewhere in the country where the disease may not have yet taken hold.
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report released on Wednesday, Sierra Leone and its neighbors Guinea and Liberia account for all but 15 of a total of 6,388 Ebola-related deaths worldwide (out of a total of 17,942 cases). In the week before December 7, Sierra Leone confirmed 397 new cases—three times its neighbors’ combined total—and in the last three weeks, AFP reports, Sierra Leone reported 1,319 new infections.
Written by /Read more at Gawker
