Sierra Leone begins three-day curfew in order to allow health workers have easy access to ebola infected patients

Thousands of health workers began knocking on doors across Sierra Leone on Friday in search of hidden Ebola cases as the entire West African nation was locked down in their homes in an unprecedented effort to combat the deadly disease.

Wooden tables lay empty at the capital's usually vibrant food markets. Police stood guard at roadblocks in this nation of six million people. This crumbling seaside capital, its streets normally crowded with bumper-to-bumper traffic, seemed like a ghost town.

Health workers planned to give each household a bar of soap during neighborhood canvassing. Once a house is visited it is to be marked with a sticker. President Ernest Bai Koroma urged Sierra Leoneans to cooperate.

'The survival and dignity of each and every Sierra Leonean is at stake,' he said Thursday night in an address to the nation.

The lockdown comes as six people were arrested in neighbouring Guinea for the deaths of eight people who were on an Ebola awareness campaign.

 

At least 562 people are believed to have died from Ebola since the virus came to Sierra Leone from neighbouring Guinea. It is believed that more than 2,600 people have died across west Africa since the current outbreak started. 

 

Authorities hope to find and isolate Ebola patients who have resisted going to health centers, often seen only as places to die. Some international health experts have warned there might not be enough beds at treatment centers for new patients found during the three-day lockdown which ends Sunday.

UNICEF said the measure provides an opportunity to tell people how to protect themselves.

'If people don't have access to the right information, we need to bring life-saving messages to them, where they live, at their doorsteps,' said Roeland Monasch, UNICEF Representative in Sierra Leone. In a statement, the U.N. children's fund said the operation needs to be carried out 'in a sensitive and respectful manner.'

Most seemed to be taking the order seriously, and there were no immediate reports of resistance to the lockdown.

'It will protect our country from this dangerous virus,' said Ishmail Bangura, a Freetown resident. 'Many of our people have died - nurses and doctors too - so if they ask us to stay home for three days, for me it not bad.'