11th September, 2014
A large football stadium in Monrovia will be converted to house two large Ebola treatment units, FIFA said Thursday.
The international football federation said in a statement it was cooperating with the World Health Organisation to transform the Antoinette Tubman Stadium in the Liberian capital for use in the fight against the epidemic ravaging west Africa.
The stadium, which FIFA had donated to Liberia’s Football Association, would “serve as the site for two urgently needed large-scale Ebola treatment units,” it said.
“Today we can use the power of football to combat the Ebola epidemic,” FIFA president Sepp Blatter said in the statement.
FIFA would cover the cost of any damage done to the recently installed pitch, he said.
Nearly 2,300 people have died since the west Africa Ebola outbreak started at the beginning of the year.
Liberia, with 1,200 dead, has borne the brunt of the outbreak, and has run perilously short of space at the few Ebola treatment sites operating.