Sierra Leone to lock down Ebola hotspots next week
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Residents in Sierra Leone's remaining Ebola hotspots will be confined to their houses for three days next week, officials said, as the government tries to snuff out an outbreak that has killed over 10,200 people across West Africa.
The number of Ebola cases in the region has fallen in recent months, though a spike in Guinea highlights the risk of complacency, over a year into the worst outbreak on record.
Sidi Yaya Tunis, an official at Sierra Leone's National Ebola Response Center, said health officials would carry out house-to-house searches from March 27-29 to identify the sick in the north and west, where the virus is spreading fastest.
Elsewhere, where transmission is lower, officials will focus on education and prevention, he said.
Health officials said a previous lockdown in Sierra Leone in September was a success and helped identify more than 100 cases.
