Sierra Leone district declares three-day Ebola lockdown

Reuters
A burial team wearing protective clothes, remove a body from an isolated holding centre, for people waiting for laboratory results, at the Port Loko District Hospital, September 27, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's northern district of Port Loko, the area with the highest rate of Ebola transmission, plans a three-day lockdown over Christmas as it seeks to contain the disease's spread. Sierra Leone is the worst-hit country in West Africa with over 9,000 cases. The rate of infection is fastest in the capital Freetown and the neighbouring province of Port Loko, where 44 out of a total 58 new cases were reported on Wednesday. "Port Loko will do a lockdown and a house-to-house campaign to find the sick," said OB Sisay, an official in the National Ebola Response Centre. He said the new measures would start at midnight on Wednesday and could be extended into the new year. Sierra Leone has also banned Christmas parties and other festivities nationwide in an effort to stop the epidemic.