AU soldiers in Somalia

A battalion of 800 Sierra Leonean soldiers awaiting deployment as peacekeepers in Somalia has been placed in quarantine after one of the members tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus.

Military officials said in Freetown on Tuesday that the soldiers were due to relieve the country’s contingent already deployed with Somalia’s African Union peacekeeping mission, known as AMISOM.

Col. Michael Samoura, Spokesman for the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces, confirmed that a member of the battalion had tested positive for the disease.

He said the soldier was infected after leaving the military camp where the force was based without permission.

Samoura said they would now be subject to a 21-day isolation period.

More than 4,000 people have died in the worst epidemic of the viral haemorrhagic fever on record, most of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.