Christmas banned in Sierra Leone due to Ebola

Authorities in Sierra Leone have banned public celebrations of Christmas and New Year to limit the spread of Ebola.

Monique Nagelkirke, Médecins sans Frontières for Sierra Leone said that public celebrations are not a good idea due to spread of the disease. She said: 'The east is doing well but Freetown, as a big city,has a lot of new cases coming up'.

The government's Ebola response unit said soldiers would be deployed during the festive period to make sure people didn't gather in the streets or other public places. Although Islam is the predominant religion, many Sierra Leoneans are Christians who traditionally celebrate Christmas in church. More than six-thousand people are known to have died from Ebola in the current outbreak, most of them in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.