Lockdown To Combat Ebola In Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone will impose a four-day countrywide lockdown as part of efforts to halt the spread of the deadly ebola virus.

Ben Kargbo, a presidential adviser on the country's ebola task force, said citizens will not be allowed to leave their homes between September 18 and 21.

This will allow health workers to identify cases in the early stages of the illness which has killed more than 2,000 people since March.

Mr Kargbo told the Reuters news agency: "The aggressive approach is necessary to deal with the spread of ebola once and for all."

According to United Nations figures, Sierra Leone has recorded 491 of the total suspected, probable and confirmed deaths.

Mr Kargbo said 21,000 people would be recruited to enforce the lockdown.

Thousands of police and soldiers have already been deployed to enforce the quarantining of towns in the country's worst-hit areas near the border with Guinea.

But an aid worker in the capital, Freetown, told Sky News a lockdown alone is not enough.

A poster in Ivory Coast warns of the risk of ebola

Augustine Allieu, from Plan International, said improving education, hygiene and facilities are also necessary.

He said: "It's not absolutely the best option, but it is definitely one of those that needs to support all of these things that I have mentioned in terms of containing the spread."

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has said a vaccine for health workers could be available by November, with testing of two candidate vaccines under way.

An American doctor who came down with the virus while working in a Liberian maternity ward is "sick but stable", officials said on Friday.

There is currently no cure or vaccine for the virus

Rick Sacra, 51, has arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center where he is being treated.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set a goal of stopping the outbreak within six to nine months.

Mr Ban said the "next few weeks will be crucial" to step up international efforts and called on countries to contribute to a $600m (£367m) appeal for supplies to west Africa.

The UN has stepped up its campaign after the international medical group Medecins Sans Frontieres declared that the world was "losing the battle" to contain ebola.

Ebola is contracted through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids and there is currently no cure or vaccine.

Symptoms of the virus appear as a sudden onset of fever, headache, sore throat, intense weakness and muscle pain.

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