Christmas is in the air! Except in Sierra Leone, the government officially bans gatherings and travel for Christmas and New Year festivities in the country as the Ebola outbreak rages on.
The ban was set in place to prevent the virus from spreading to rural villages as citizens go back to their homes to celebrate the holidays. Islam is the dominant religion in Sierra Leone, but over a quarter of its population are Christians so a number of people will still be affected by the ban. The army is tasked with enforcing the edict, barring people from leaving Freetown, the country's capital, to travel during the holidays and stopping any kind of celebration in the streets. A similar lock-down is being implemented in Port Loko, another big urban area with rising cases of Ebola infections.
According to Palo Conteh, defense minister heading Sierra Leone's response unit for Ebola, the government will ensure that everyone remains home during the holiday celebrations to reflect on Ebola.
However, Christmas decorations are still for sale along roadside markets while numerous public buildings are sporting Christmas trees in their lobbies.
With schools closed in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, five million children are missing out on their education and who knows when they'll be able to get back. Football games have also been prohibited, counted in a sports ban initiated to curb infections. Churches are allowed to hold their usual services, but congregation members cannot sit together as usual, separated from their brothers and sisters in the community to prevent the spread of Ebola.
Population movement promotes sudden outbreaks in more remote portions of Sierra Leone, with one of the latest to be affected being Kono, a mining center specializing in diamonds. When the World Health Organization checked in, an emergency response team reported a lot of the people were sick; they had to bury 87 bodies.
"Our team met heroic doctors and nurses at their wits' end, exhausted burial teams and lab techs, all doing the best they could, but they simply ran out of resources and were overrun with gravely ill people," recounted Dr. Olu Olushayo, WHO Ebola response national coordinator. In areas like Kono, where transmission rates are moderate, he says the best way to prevent infections is via comprehensive and aggressive contact tracing and case investigations.
The Ebola outbreak has already claimed more than 6,500 people across West Africa. Out of this number, almost 1,900 were from Sierra Leone.
