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Sierra Leone to Shut Down for 3 Days to Slow Ebola

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Sep 18, 2014, 7:19 PM ET

By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY Associated Press

In this photo taken on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014, a man dries his hands after washing them with chlorine outside a shop in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Shoppers crowded streets and markets in Sierra Leone's capital on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014,... View Full Caption The Associated Press

In this photo taken on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014, a man dries his hands after washing them with chlorine outside a shop in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Shoppers crowded streets and markets in Sierra Leone's capital on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, stocking up for a three-day shutdown that authorities hope will slow the spread of the Ebola outbreak that is accelerating across West Africa. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff) Close The Associated Press

In a desperate bid to slow West Africa's accelerating Ebola outbreak, Sierra Leone ordered its 6 million people confined to their homes for three days starting Friday while volunteers conduct a house-to-house search for victims in hiding.

At an emergency meeting, meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council unanimously called the crisis "a threat to international peace and security" and urged all countries to provide experts, field hospitals and medical supplies. It was only the second time the council addressed a health emergency, the first being the AIDS epidemic.

And in Guinea, seven bodies were found after a team of Guinean health workers trying to educate people about Ebola was abducted by villagers armed with rocks and knives, the prime minister said. Among the dead were three Guinean radio journalists.

Many villagers in West Africa have reacted with fear and panic when outsiders have come to conduct awareness campaigns and have even attacked health clinics.

The disease, which has also touched Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal, is believed to have sickened more than 5,300 people and killed more than 2,600 of them, the U.N.'s World Health Organization reported. In a sign the crisis is picking up steam, more than 700 of those infections were recorded in the last week for which data is available.

During the lockdown in Sierra Leone, 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 dispense information on how to prevent Ebola.

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.

"Today the life of every one is at stake, but we will get over this difficulty if all do what we have been asked to do." Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma said in an address late Thursday.

As shoppers rushed to buy food and other items ahead of the deadline, some merchants worried about how they would feed their own families after losing three days' income. Much of Sierra Leone's population lives on $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."

The U.N. Security Council resolution was co-sponsored by an unprecedented 130 countries, reflecting the rising global concern.

"This is likely the greatest peacetime challenge that the United Nations and its agencies have ever faced," said Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO chief.

She added: "None of us experienced in containing outbreaks has ever seen, in our lifetimes, an emergency on this scale, with this degree of suffering, and with this magnitude of cascading consequences."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a 20-fold increase in aid totaling almost $1 billion to deal with the crisis.

Several countries promised aid even before the resolution was adopted.

 

 

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