“Look, there really is no danger to this new weight loss regime – don’t believe all those scare stories in the press,” says Dr Hans Schlonger, the man behind the controversial new ‘Slim the Ebola Way’ scheme. “It’s all perfectly natural – weight loss as nature intended!” The method – reportedly the current slimming craze among celebrities – involves the subject contracting a dose of the deadly disease Ebola, then effectively shitting and vomiting their way to thinness. “I know that Ebola has a bad reputation right now, what with having killed thousands of people in West Africa, but the fact is that it need not be fatal,” the medic claims. “As long as you get immediate, high quality, medical care – not the shitty conditions they have in West Africa, but the kind of care you get in my high tech private care facility in Boston – then your chances of survival are surprisingly high.” Indeed, a surprising number of obese millionaires have taken Schlonger’s treatment regime, being infected with a mild dose of Ebola, before being whisked straight into the care facility.

“Originally we had a de luxe service neatly set up – we’d fly them in on a private jet, get them to shake hands with some poor local slob who is crapping themselves to death, then fly them straight to Boston on the private jet, which had full medical facilities on board, obviously,” Schlonger told The Sleaze. “But the authorities have started making it difficult for us, restricting flights and screening passengers. So we’ve had to resort to covert means, smuggling our clients in disguised as medics and aid workers.” The medic also claimed that celebrities were also playing the humanitarian card to gain access to Ebola affected countries in West Africa. “Why else would they go to some shit hole infested with a deadly disease?” he asks/ “They just do a bit of glad handing, making sure that they surreptitiously slip off a surgical glove whilst pressing the flesh, then they get the UN or some charity to fly them back to the States before the symptoms start showing. Once they’re home, we’ve got a luxury suite at the clinic awaiting them!”

Whilst unwilling to confirm the identities of any of the clients who have so far taken his treatment, Schlonger does confirm that several A-List celebrities, including at least two household name movie stars, have availed themselves of his services. “Obviously, patient confidentiality prevents me from naming any of them, but so far thee have been no complaints and we have a long waiting list,” he confided to The Sleaze. “It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that so many celebrities are taking this extreme route to slimming – they’re under tremendous pressure to look good and often a starring role in a big budget movie could be dependent on them being able to lose five stone in a fortnight.” However, despite the apparent satisfaction of his clients, Schlonger’s Ebola slimming treatment has attracted criticism from other medial professionals, many of whom have questioned why he and his customers are apparently hampering the humanitarian aid effort by going all the way to Africa to get infected, when this could be done under laboratory conditions at the Boston clinic. “Are these people insane?” Schlonger asks in response to his critics. “Don’t they know the amount of crap the government would bring down on us if they found that we were infecting people with Ebola on the US mainland? Just think of the risks if something went wrong: an Ebola epidemic in Africa is one thing, but in the US it would be a disaster!”

Nevertheless, although Schlonger has so far suffered no casualties at his facility, he has been widely criticised by the medical profession for his reckless approach to weight loss. “There’s nothing new in these ‘shit-yourself-thin’ schemes, but this is the most extreme version we’ve seen,” declared Professor Enid Muffler of the World Health Organisation (WHO). “The use of such a virulent disease as Ebola is completely irresponsible. Just eating some rancid meat would have much the same effect with far a lower level of risk. But, of course, that wouldn’t be glamourous enough for these celebrities – it’s the element of risk, I suppose, which attracts these thrill seekers.” But it isn’t the risks being taken by celebrity slimmers on the Ebola programme which worries Muffler the most. “My biggest worry is that his celebrity patronage will encourage fat people who can’t afford his fees to travel to places like Liberia in the hope of contacting Ebola,” she opined. “Having caught a dose, they’ll then try to rush back to Europe or the US for treatment, putting further strain on health facilities in these countries.”

Already there have been reports of teenaged girls from the UK travelling to West Africa and deliberately coming into contact with Ebola sufferers in the hope of getting the disease. “I’d do it again, it was worth all the pain,” gasped eighteen year old Mandy Feel, from the intensive care ward of the School of Tropical Diseases at St Fanny’s Hospital in Uxbridge, where she has been confined since returning to the UK from Liberia. “It was really easy to get a dose of Ebola, I just kissed this sick looking woman’s baby outside the airport after I landed in Liberia – I got on the next plane back home.” After enduring several massive bouts of vomiting and crapping, Mandy claims to have lost three stone in less than a week and has now secured a modelling contract. For his part, Dr Schlonger is already thinking ahead to his next weight loss treatment. “Ebola can’t last much longer – sooner or later the US is going to napalm the whole of West Africa out of existence to stop the threat to American voters,” he told The Sleaze. “Although I’m sure that it will go out of fashion before then. I mean, now that Bob bloody Geldof has been all over it with his chariry record, no celebrity with a shred of credibility will want to go anywhere near Ebola. Clearly we need an alternative slimming agent. I’ve been reading that HIV is becoming milder and non-fatal – maybe that could be the next slimming agent.”