SIERRA Leone’s entire population were restricted to their homes yesterday for the first of a three-day “shut-down” designed to slow the spread of ebola.

The UN security council called the ebola outbreak “a threat to international peace and security” and urged the world to provide health experts, field hospitals and medical supplies to combat the virus.

World Health Organisation director-general Dr Margaret Chan said that in the hardest-hit countries — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — “an exponentially rising caseload threatens to push governments to the brink of state failure.”

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders Monrovia team leader Jackson Naimah said there weren’t enough beds and people “are sitting at the gates of our centres, literally begging for their lives” and “dying at our front door.

“We are failing the sick because there is not enough help on the ground,” Dr Naimah warned.

“If the international community does not stand up, we will be wiped out.”