Ebola: A whole country in quarantine

Augustine Goba, laboratory director at Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. Photo / AP

Sierra Leone's proposed countrywide 'lockdown' will not help control an Ebola outbreak and could lead to the disease spreading further as cases are concealed, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) claimed today.

The government plans to order citizens not to leave the areas around their homes for three days from September 19 in a bid to prevent new infections and help health workers track down people suffering from the disease, the information ministry also said today.

'It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola as they end up driving people underground and jeopardising the trust between people and health providers,' said MSF.

'This leads to the concealment of potential cases and ends up spreading the disease further,' added MSF, which has been helping fight the world's biggest outbreak of the disease across West Africa.

An Ebola outbreak that was first identified in Guinea in March has since spread across much of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cases have also been registered in Nigeria and Senegal and the World Health Organisation (WHO) says that more than 2,100 people have died.

The WHO says that it will take months to bring Ebola under control and forecast as many as 20,000 cases.

Sierra Leone's deputy information minister, Theo Nichol, said that the three-day shutdown would make it easier for medical workers to trace suspected cases.

Mr Nichol said the period may be extended if needed. A presidency official had earlier said the lockdown would last for four days.

But MSF said that door-to-door screening required a high level of expertise and, even when cases were found, there were a lack of treatment centres and other facilities to take them to.

MSF reiterated its calls for nations with civilian and military biological-disaster response capacities to send equipment and teams to West Africa.

'This remains our best hope of bringing this deadly outbreak under control as quickly as possible,' it said.

- Daily Mail