Lockdown likely to be extended

A three-day lockdown in Sierra Leone - aimed at stemming the worst Ebola epidemic on record - is likely to be extended, health officials said. The news comes as dozens of new infections were reported during the three-day national quarantine.

"There is a very strong possibility [the lockdown] will be extended," Stephen Gaojia, head of the Emergency Operations Center that leads the national Ebola response, said after meeting with President Ernest Bai Koroma on Sunday.

In one of the most extreme strategies employed since the epidemic began, Sierra Leone ordered its 6 million residents to stay indoors from Friday to Sunday as volunteers circulated to educate households as well as isolate the sick and remove the dead.

"Even though the exercise has been a huge success so far, it has not been concluded in some metropolitan cities like Freetown and Kenema," Gaojia said, adding that 92 bodies had been recovered across the country by the end of Saturday, the second day of the lockdown.

By Sunday, there were 56 cases reported of new infections.

Criticism of the lockdown

Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa this year, mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing 2,630 of those, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). At least 562 have died in Sierra Leone.

The lockdown was intended to allow 30,000 health workers, volunteers and teachers to visit every household in the country. Some criticized the measure before it began on Friday as a rush to stock up on provisions caused a spike in prices, leaving many of Sierra Leone's poor unable to buy food.

Doctors Without Borders has also warned that the lockdown could lead people to conceal cases. Residents have largely complied with the plan, and the streets of the capital have remained mostly deserted, except for ambulances and police vehicles.

A team burying Ebola victims was attacked in Freetown on Saturday, however, as a small group defied the lockdown.

Liberia hardest hit

The two other countries hit hardest by the outbreak are Liberia, which has recorded the highest number of cases and deaths, and Guinea, where the first cases were confirmed in March.

On Saturday, Guinean officials said five doctors contracted the disease while performing a Caesarean section on a woman in the capital, Conakry.

Dr. Sakoba Keita, national coordinator for Ebola, said the incident was due to the doctors' "carelessness" but also underscored how vulnerable health workers are to Ebola.

In Liberia on Sunday, officials opened a new 150-bed treatment center, the country's largest, in the Bushrod Island section of Monrovia. Four ambulances arrived almost immediately, full of sick patients.

gb/bw (AFP, AP, Reuters)