EBOLA: VIOLATORS OF EBOLA LAWS TO GO TO JAIL IN SIERRA LEONE

The Freetown District Ebola Response Centre Co-ordinator, Raymond Kabia has said on Sunday that at a stake holders meeting held on Friday, it was decided that violators of the by-laws of Ebola will no longer be fined but will go to jail for six months instead.
The new emergency by-laws were created to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus.
"People caught in secret  burials and washing bodies, transporting healers treating the sick and those hiding sick people in homes will be jailed for six months without option of fined", Kabia told local reporters in Port Loco.
He said over 10 section chiefs and 10 village headmen have been sacked and fined in the past, but anyone not obeying  the laws now will go to jail.
An assessment tour of two other districts where Ebola is prevalent, Port Loko and Kambia has blamed herbalists for the spread of the virus for secretly treating people in the belief that the disease is linked to witchcraft and sorcery.
President Ernest Bai Koromo has asked all government ministers and lawmakers from the districts affected to go to the areas and help in the operations to stop new infections.