Ebola has now killed more than 2,900 people in West Africa.  Sierra Leone is watching the infection rate pick up and is now taking more drastic and desperate measures to try and contain the deadly virus, putting more than one million people under quarantine.

The northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali, as well as Moyamba in the south have been sealed off.  Travelers are warned not to get out of their cars in isolation areas.  President Ernest Bai Koroma has placed nearly all of the country’s 14 districts under either total or partial quarantine.

Sierra Leone tried a three-day quarantine last weekend, and hinted that it would not be repeated.  Critics say that the latest lock-down had not been announced ahead of time, and that’s going to make food insecurity even worse.

“We were not prepared for the quarantine overnight,” said Kelfa Kargbo, the Sierra Leone director for the British charity Street Child.  “The areas being quarantined are really poor communities, most people live on 50p a day,” he added.

“We need more help from the World Food Program, but more than that we need a distribution network to be built to make sure the food gets in and gets in regularly to the starving people.  I am expecting starvation to show in three or four weeks unless this is addressed.”

The French medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) repeatedly warned that quarantines do more harm than good because they restrict the free flow of food, aid, and personnel.  Donors have pledged to provide these things, but they’ve got to act more quickly.

“The reality on the ground today is this: The promised surge has not yet been delivered,” said MSF international President Dr. Joanne Liu.  “The sick are desperate, their families and caregivers are angry, and aid workers are exhausted.  Today, Ebola is winning.”

Since March, the UN World health Organization (WHO) has reported more than 6,200 suspected or confirmed infections in five countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal.  The latter two seem to have contained and controlled Ebola.  The rest are buckling under the strain.

“The current epidemiologic outlook is bleak,” said the authors of a WHO study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  “For the medium term, at least, we must therefore face the possibility that (Ebola) will become endemic among the human population of West Africa, a prospect that has never previously been contemplated.”