Sierra Leone discovers 70 bodies as Ebola response is stepped up

West Africa intensified its response to the deadly Ebola epidemic Sunday, with Sierra Leone uncovering scores of dead bodies during a 72-hour shutdown and Liberia announcing 1,000 hospital beds.

The outbreak has killed more than 2,600 people in the countries and neighbouring Guinea this year, cutting a swathe through entire villages at the epicentre and prompting warnings over possible economic catastrophe.

Most of Sierra Leone’s six million people were confined to their homes for a third straight day today, with only essential workers such as health professionals and security forces exempt. Deputy Chief Medical Officer Sarian Kamara said the authorities had received thousands of calls but only a handful of new patients in the Western Area covering Freetown and its surroundings.

“We were... able to confirm new cases which, had they not been discovered, would have greatly increased transmission,” she said.

“Up to this morning, we had 22 new cases. The response from the medical (teams) has improved and the burial teams were able to bury between 60 to 70 corpses over the past two days.”

Liberia announced plans today for an increase in beds for Ebola patients in its overwhelmed capital Monrovia, raising the number from around 250 to 1,000 by the end of October.

The move comes two weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned the country, worst-hit in the outbreak with more than 1,450 deaths, was about to see a huge spike in infections, with thousands of new cases imminent. “Patients are being rejected... because there is no space.

"So the government is trying its best to finish the 1,000 beds so we can accommodate all the patients,” Information Minister Lewis Brown told AFP.

The announcement came ahead of the opening of a 150-bed unit, the largest government facility in the country, on Sunday in Monrovia’s western suburb of Duala.

The latest WHO figures show Liberia reporting 2,710 cases, but they were given a week ago, and the government’s two Ebola units in Monrovia say they have been deluged by patients in recent days.

“I am here since this morning, I was here Saturday and the day before, but they keep telling me to go and come back,” Fatima Bonoh, 35, told AFP today, shivering at the entrance of the Redemption hospital, an Ebola referral unit.

The widespread fallout from the outbreak was underlined by India’s decision Saturday to postpone plans for a summit in New Delhi to be attended by representatives of more than 50 African nations.

In Madrid, officials said a plane was being dispatched to fly a Catholic missionary infected with Ebola home from Sierra Leone.

Independent observers in Freetown have voiced concerns over the quality of advice being given out during the country’s shutdown, complaining of poor training of 30,000 volunteers giving out soap and advice.