No Christmas and New Year celebrations because of Ebola

Sierra Leone: WHO finds dozens of Ebola corpses

13/12/2014

In Sierra Leone, all public Christmas and New Year's Eve parties were banned. World Health Organization (WHO) officials have found dozens of highly contagious Ebola corpses in the West African country. German artists are involved in the fight against the deadly infectious disease.

Public Christmas and New Year celebrations are prohibited
In Sierra Leone, all public Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations were banned for protection against Ebola. This reports the news agency Reuters. According to the United Nations, the Ebola epidemic continues to spread rapidly in several regions of West Africa. The prohibition of meetings should reduce the risk of infection in the African country, a government spokesman said on Friday. During the holidays soldiers should make sure that the population keeps to the measures.

Highly infectious bodies found
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 18,000 infections have been registered in the various countries. The death toll has risen to almost 6,400. According to the dpa news agency, WHO staff found 87 highly contagious Ebola victims in a remote hospital in remote East Sierra Leone, but without adequate security. „They found a horrible situation“, so the WHO. The fund raised fears that the number of Ebola cases in the affected West African countries could be far higher than official statistics suggest.

No reason to be all-clear
Just like WHO boss Margaret Chan recently, the Federal Government's Ebola representative, Walter Lindner, warned that there is no reason to be all-clear in the fight against the disease. „For the all-clear it is much too early“, Lindner told the German Press Agency. There is still no cure and no safe vaccine against the disease. Patients are usually treated only with typical Ebola symptoms such as fever, diarrhea, nausea and internal and external bleeding.

Band Aid in German
Meanwhile, German artists are also involved in the fight against the Ebola epidemic. On the initiative of the British musician Bob Geldof, numerous musicians have come together in the country to a German version of the charity song: „Do you know it´s christmas?“ take. With the original song Geldof collected about the project Band Aid 30 years ago money against the hunger in Africa. The new edition collects financial aid for the fight against Ebola. In addition to the singer of the Toten Hosen, Campino, who is responsible for the lyrics among others, artists like Marteria, Peter Maffay, Michi Beck from the Fantastic Four and Max Raabe are also involved in the song. (Ad)