FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Shoppers in Sierra Leone rushed to stock up on food Thursday 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 thought to have sickened more than 5,300 people, the World Health Organization 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 are 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.
At an emergency meeting Thursday, the U.N. Security Council called the outbreak “a threat to international peace and security” and unanimously urged all countries to provide experts, field hospitals and medical supplies.
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.
More than six months into the world’s largest Ebola outbreak, there are still affected areas without access to soap and water, 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.
