Sierra Leone quarantines one million ahead of UN Ebola talks

Terra Daily via AFP: Sierra Leone began a quarantine of more than one million people Thursday in the largest open-ended lockdown in the Ebola outbreak, as world leaders met to discuss the crisis at the United Nations. The northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali have been closed off indefinitely along with the southern district of Moyamba -- effectively sealing in around 1.2 million people.

With the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun already under quarantine, more than a third of the population of six million -- in five of the nation's 14 districts -- now finds itself unable to move freely.

The president said 12 of the county's 149 tribal chiefdoms -- much smaller administrative areas than districts -- were also to be placed in quarantine, although the total population in these areas was not immediately clear.

"The isolation of districts and chiefdoms will definitely pose great difficulty but the lives of everyone and the survival of our country takes precedence over these difficulties," President Ernest Bai Koroma told the nation in a televised address late Wednesday....