Sierra Leone Is Shutting Down for 3 Days Because of Ebola

Sierra Leone is set to begin a three-day lockdown tonight at midnight to curb the spread of Ebola, according to Doctors Without Borders.

Government authorities have ordered the country's 6 million people to stay in their homes from Sept. 19 through Sept. 21, while volunteers go door-to-door to screen for Ebola and take infected people in hiding to Ebola facilities, according to Doctors Without Borders, which called the endeavor "coercive."

"Large-scale coercive measures like forced quarantines and lockdowns are driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers," Doctors Without Borders said in a statement to ABC News. "This is leading to the concealment of cases and is pushing the sick away from health systems."

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The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has sickened at least 5,357 people since March, killing 2,630 of them, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization. This is the largest Ebola outbreak since the deadly virus was identified in 1976, and the virus has killed more people in the last six months than it had in the previous 38 years combined.

Doctors Without Borders said it will be "extremely difficult" for government health workers to screen patients in this way without proper expertise. And even if the effort was successful, there would be too many Ebola patients to fit into existing facilities.

"Without enough beds to treat patients who have Ebola we will fail to stop it spreading even further," Doctors Without Borders said. "What Sierra Leone and Liberia urgently need are more beds in case management centers, and they need them now."