Katharine Lackey

USA TODAY

Ebola-plagued Sierra Leone is banning holiday celebrations this year as it continues to fight the deadly virus, the head of the government's Ebola response unit told reporters.

There will be "no Christmas and New Year celebrations this year," Palo Conteh said in the capital of Freetown, according to AFP.

"We will ensure that everybody remains at home to reflect on Ebola," he said. "Military personnel will be on the streets at Christmas and the New Year to stop any street celebrations."

The majority of Sierra Leone's population is Muslim, but Christians make up 10% of its people, according to the CIA World Factbook.

More than 6,500 have died and another 18,100 have been infected with Ebola in West Africa — mainly in the nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea — since the outbreak began nearly a year ago.

On Thursday, Sierra Leone's president reiterated his call to halt unsafe religious and cultural practices blamed for spreading Ebola, such as burials that involve touching corpses.

"We should stop all traditional practices for now so that we will live to continue to practice them later," President Ernest Bai Koroma said in a speech.

The outbreak has only intensified in Sierra Leone recently: In the past three weeks, more than 1,300 new Ebola infections have been recorded in the nation, which has overtaken Liberia in reporting the highest number of cases of the deadly virus, AFP reported.

Meanwhile, Mali's Health Ministry said Friday that the last patient with the virus in that nation, which recorded eight cases of Ebola, has been released.

Contributing: The Associated Press