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SIERRA LEONE, ONE of the countries worst affected by the Ebola crisis in west Africa, has announced a four day ‘lockdown’ to take place later this month, aimed at halting the spread of the disease.
It will begin on 18 September lasting until the 21st, a senior official in the President’s office said, according to Reuters.
Citizens won’t be allowed to leave their homes during the period in order to prevent the disease from spreading, and help health workers identify further cases.
“The aggressive approach is necessary to deal with the spread of Ebola once and for all,” Reuters quotes Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, an advisor on the country’s Ebola task-force as saying.
It’s planned 21,000 people will be recruited to enforce the lockdown.
Death toll
The World Health Organisation confirmed yesterday that the death toll from the Ebola epidemic has climbed above 2,000.
The deadly virus has claimed 2,097 lives out of 3,944 people infected in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, since emerging last December.
Nigeria has recorded another eight deaths out of 22 cases. At least 30 more people have died in a separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Results from safety trials for two prototype vaccines should be known in November, the WHO added.
“If proven safe, a vaccine could be available in November 2014 for priority use in health-care workers,” it said in a statement.
No licenced vaccine or treatments exist for Ebola. A number, though, have been tested in animal models and shown promising results.
Includes reporting from AFP.
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What’s that rushing up towards me, said Rosetta. I shall call it “rocks” it thought happily – I wonder if it will be my friend?
Who is flying it, Mmmmm……it would be too much to hope for, by the way is leaders questions on this morning.
They better be friends. They’ll probably be together for billions of years.
Per second? Wow! That’s fast..
@The Girl:
Approx. 30,000 mph
Sure the Earth is going at 30km per second, and rotating at 1,000mph at the equator.
True, the earth orbits the sun at about 108,000 km/hr. And all without spilling your tea. ☺
Has to be 14km per hour, the speed of a gentle amble
Don’t forget that the Milky Way itself is driving along at 1,300,000 mph. It’s all very interesting really!
@Elma Phudd: so in other words if I walk forwards I am travelling at 1.3m mph + 108k mph + 1000 mph (if at the equator) + whatever speed I am doing :-). Like a fly in a car (doing 90) flies from the back to the front inside the cabin. Is he doing the 90+fly speed or jsut fly speed :-)
It depends which direction you are walking in ;)
You only don’t spill your tea because the brakes have been sabotaged by the illuminati to stop anyone getting off and away from the crazyness.
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, And things seem hard or tough, And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft, And you feel that you’ve had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough, Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving And revolving at 900 miles an hour. It’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned, The sun that is the source of all our power. Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see, Are moving at a million miles a day, In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars; It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side; It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick, But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide. We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point, We go ’round every two hundred million years; And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe.
A truly incredible and inspirational program from start to finish. What they’ve achieved is astonishing!
Everything that lives is born to die…….even spacecraft!
Lets hope Rosetta’s impact doesn’t nudge the comet off its trajectory and send it spiraling towards earth.
It’s going the wrong direction and there’s not going to be much force from the landing! The momentum of the comet probably won’t be affected by the satellite crashing into it.
bags summa dat metal dere boss
Were any of the scientists wearing sexist clothing during the announcement? Because that’s what really matters here.
All that technology and it took them ages to find Osama Bin Laden.
Why crash it though? Why not just let it drift off into the abyss?
Litter bug!
@OU812: They hope to obtain useful data from the crash landing. They’d get none if they let it drift.
And it was on its last legs….
This way they know where it is: drifting it’d be a hazard to the next one up?
Fantastic and another European victory in the friendly space race between the USA and Europe/Russia…hopefully much more can be invested in Space exploration.
Rosette are you better, are you well well well
We should all be glad that we managed to land on a comet before one landed on us.
have your say