Sierra Leone has begun a three-day lockdown to enable health workers find and isolate cases of Ebola in an attempt to halt the spread of the disease.
The move, initiated by the government is due to the reluctance of citizens who are afraid to seek medical treatment for Ebola, fearing that diagnosis might mean death to them.
A team of 30,000 volunteers have embarked on a house-to-house sensitization exercise as well as identifying infected persons.
Critics say the lockdown will damage public trust in doctors.
Speaking in an interview to Citi News the Editor of Freetown based The Salone Times newspaper, Thomas Dixon said every street in Freetown is empty and everybody is indoors.
“Citizens are required to stay at home and nobody is allowed to go out on the streets and if you go around Freetown the streets are empty nobody is going around. Shops and markets are closed and everything is down, everybody is inside his or her house. That is what is happening in Sierra Leone now,”he said
“Government workers, private workers and even for us journalist we are not working now except for few people who have pass that are going out working but we don’t have anything in the country going on now even the Muslims and Christians are very angry because today the Muslims have to do the “Jumah” prayer and on Sunday the Christians will have to go to church but they were very angry and they were on radio saying that the government has considered the economic interest over religious interest,” he added.
By: Patricia Conteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana