Shoppers in Sierra Leone rushed to stock up on food today ahead of a three-day nationwide shutdown, during which the country's 6 million people will be confined to their homes while volunteers search house-to-house for Ebola victims in hiding and hand out soap in a desperate bid to slow the accelerating outbreak.
The disease sweeping West Africa has also touched Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal and is believed to have sickened more than 5,300 people, the World Health Organisation reported.
In a sign the crisis is picking up steam, more than 700 of those cases were recorded in the last week for which data is available.
Ebola is estimated to have killed more than 2,600 people, with most of the deaths in Liberia. But WHO has said that the official toll is probably a gross underestimate and that most patients are at home, infecting others, when they should be in treatment centres.
The UN Security Council was scheduled to discuss the crisis later Thursday.
During the lockdown, which was set to begin at midnight Thursday and run through Sunday, volunteers will try to identify sick people reluctant or unable to seek treatment. They will also hand out 1.5 million bars of soap and deliver information on how to prevent Ebola.
More than six months into the world's largest Ebola outbreak, there are still affected areas without access to water or soap, WHO said.
Authorities have said they expect to discover hundreds of new cases during the shutdown. Many of those infected have not sought treatment out of fear that hospitals are merely places people go to die. Others have been turned away by centers overwhelmed with patients.
Sierra Leone's government said it has prepared screening and treatment centers to accept the expected influx of patients after the shutdown.
As shoppers rushed to buy last-minute items, some merchants worried about how they would feed their own families after losing three days' income. Much of Sierra Leone's population lives on USD 2 a day or less, and making ends meet is a day-to-day struggle.
"If we do not sell here we cannot eat," said Isatu Sesay, a vegetable seller in the capital. "We do not know how we will survive during the three-day shutdown."
Several countries have promised aid. France announced today it will set up a military hospital in Guinea in the coming days.
