The deadly Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone took a new and deadly twist on Tuesday as burial teams went on strike, raising the risk of more cases. The teams in two districts say they haven't been paid weekly risk allowances for at least two weeks despite the dangers of their work.
One of the burial team member said, "We haven't been paid for two weeks and right now we need our money. We don't care if dead bodies have been littered all over the city. We want our money. We've been stigmatized in our communities so let the government pay us our money." Burial team members earn about 100 U.S. dollars a week. They alone are permitted to remove the bodies of Ebola victims whose remains are still infectious even after death.
The government says their pay is only a week late and will be resolved within days. Non-government organisation Health Alert Sierra Leone says they earn their money. William Sai Lamin of Health Alert Sierra Leone said "From May to now we have received up to...I mean over 60 deaths of health workers in Sierra Leone."
About 100 British Army medical staff are preparing to head to Sierra Leone to set up a field hospital for infected health workers. The United States is deploying some 4, 000 military personnel to help combat the outbreak in Liberia which has been worst hit. The world's worst outbreak of Ebola had killed at least 3, 439 people in West Africa as of October 1st, according to the World Health Organisation.
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