Health
How Ebola Broke Sierra Leone’s Heart
In this photo taken Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, a health worker examines patients for Ebola inside a screening tent, at the Kenema Government Hospital situated in the Eastern Province around 300 km, (186 miles), from the capital city of Freetown in Kenema, Sierra Leone. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)
(CNN) — “Blood, sweat, and tears” on the football pitch used to mean a very different thing in Sierra Leone.
In a country where Ebola is spreading faster than anywhere else on the planet — with around 7,000 reported cases so far — each droplet of bodily fluid evokes suspicion.
Here, even a post-match handshake is an uneasy encounter.
In this fearful new climate, football has been banned. And to sports-obsessed Sierra Leoneans, the embargo is tantamount to forbidding God.
“Football is like a second religion in Sierra Leone,” explained the country’s Football Association president Isha Johansen.
