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The Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is devastating…

Sierra Leone Government Cancels Christmas To Prevent Ebola Disease From Spreading

The holiday season is sadly looking more and more bleek for the Sierra Leone community

via 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 worlwide (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.

We will continue to keep the people of Sierra Leone in our prayers.

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