Sierra Leone, one of four countries worst hit by the Ebola outbreak, has announced a three-day lockdown in an effort to stop the disease. People will not be able to leave their homes from 19 to 21 September. The purpose of the lockdown is to isolate new cases to prevent further spread of the disease. More than 2,100 people have died due to Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria so far.
Officials said more than 20,000 people would be deployed to enforce the lockdown and make sure people stay indoors. Cooperation of the people is the key to success said Thomas Fessy in Senegal, the BBC’s West Africa correspondent. Forcing the lockdown could spark violent demonstrations.
In August, Liberia locked down a large slum in its capital Monrovia for more than a week in an effort to contain the virus. Nigeria decided to reopen its schools beginning 22 September, which were closed as a precaution against the spread of the disease. And in September, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the blood of patients who recovered from Ebola should be used to treat others because of the antibodies produced, even though the therapy is unproven to help.
“While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, [Satan] will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4, 5, The Great Controversy, page 589