'The Ebola virus is no
joke,' harrumphed The Source website’ and to avoid contracting it from anybody,
when Akon left the stage to crowd surf with the people that were attending his
concert, he did so in a huge plastic protective bubble.' What the website did
not report was that the five-time Grammy nominee has performed inside the stage
prop on a number of previous occasions including in Perth, Australia, and
Dubai, both in 2010. Neither of those countries were battling Ebola outbreaks
at the time.
Akon was born in St. Louis,
Missouri, he frequently travels to Africa where his West African-styled vocals
mixed with East Coast and Southern beats are hugely popular. In 2011, Forbes ranked him fifth in its list
of the most powerful celebrities in Africa, where he has his own charity for
underprivileged children called Konfidence Foundation. He also owns a diamond
mine in South Africa.
The DR Congo has been
plagued by violence and unrest for much of the last 20 years as it toiled
through a series of bloody civil wars. Forty-two people have died in DR Congo
since the outbreak erupted in West Africa six months ago. The first reported
case in DR Congo was on August 26. As it
evolved, his actions at Goma actions prompted breathless reports from certain
media outlets which saw that as a cynical attempt to shield himself from the
deadly virus sweeping West Africa.
In 1995 movie ‘Outbreak’ directed by Wolfgang Petersen starring Dustin
Hoffman ran packed houses. The film focusses on an outbreak of a fictional
Ebola-like virus called Motaba in Zaire and later in a small town in the United
States. Outbreak's plot speculates how far military
and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly contagion.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
6th Oct 2014.
Photo and news credit : dailymail.co.uk
