Jail Threats for Sierra Leone Ebola Victims’ Families

THE DAILY BEAST by Abby Haglage                                                                              Dec. 10, 2014
...In effort to curb the surge in cases, the Sierra Leonean government has issued a stern—and somewhat chilling—threat to the families of Ebola victims: Get caught performing a typical burial ritual, or hiding the body of an Ebola victim, and you’ll go to jail. Eight days after missing the Dec. 1 deadline set by the World Health Organization, which predicted that containment would require 70 percent of victims to be in treatment by then, Sierra Leone has officially become the epidemic’s new ground zero....

In the eyes of Palo Conteh, Sierra Leone’s Ebola “czar,” unsafe burials and handling of corpses are largely to blame. Now reportedly sending search parties into villages to look for hidden bodies, Conteh plans to prosecute those who are not complying with CDC protocol. “When the family calls [the burial hotline] and it is proved that the corpse has been tampered with, we are going to quarantine the entire family or take them to holding centers for 21 days,” Conteh told reporters Friday.

“If they are negative, they will be taken to prison for a certain period under the state of emergency. If they are positive, we will send them for treatment,” he continued....

Despite the severity of this threat, especially given the pain that citizens there are already enduring, many in the nation are behind it....
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/10/jail-threats-for-sierra-leone-ebola-victims-families.html