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Viral
Evan Bartlett
Nov 24, 2014
In a bid to raise as much money as possible in the fight against Ebola, Bob Geldof has urged people to download the charity single by Band Aid 30, delete it and repeat.
Geldof's main concern is that because the song is only priced at 99p, it will need to be bought for more times than the 1984 version that costed £3.50.
We need to sell 300% more than we did then [in 1984] to even begin to make up the cash figure.
- Bob Geldof, speaking to BBC Radio 1
Apart from the flaw in his strategy - once a song is downloaded on iTunes, customers cannot pay for it again, as pointed out by the Guardian - there are also far simpler ways people can donate money to fight Ebola.
The outbreak has killed more than 5,400 people since March, the majority of those victims in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
While charity is just part of the fight against Ebola, there are medical teams on the ground in serious need of protective equipment, beds, drugs and clean drinking water (among other things).
As the Red Cross one of the many charities fighting the outbreak across the region says:
Over 9,500 Red Cross volunteers are working across West Africa to halt the spread of Ebola through awareness raising campaigns, monitoring and tracing people who have come into contact with patients, counselling Ebola survivors and relatives and conducting safe and dignified burials.
- British Red Cross spokesperson
Charities including the Red Cross and Oxfam are also helping to set up Ebola prevention facilities in countries like Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Senegal.
Without wanting to state the obvious, people who want to help fight Ebola could just, um, donate money directly to one of the many charities fighting the outbreak without having to listen to four minutes, 50 seconds of Ed Sheeran, One Direction and that chap off of Coldplay several times (as catchy as the song is)...
Below are links to the donation pages of some of the charities helping the fight against Ebola in affected areas of West Africa:
Alternatively you can download Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid 30 here. A CD version priced £3.99 will be released on 8 December.
More: Band Aid 30 - Listen to the charity single raising money to fight Ebola
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