Sierra Leone has announced a three-day shutdown to curb the spread of deadly viral disease Ebola.

During the lockdown, the volunteers will identify people infected with Ebola and hand out 1.5 million bars of soap to people across the country.

The latest outbreak of this disease has spread to Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, and has affected over 5,300 people, according to figures released by the World Health Organization on Thursday. It is a matter of concern that over 700 of those cases were recorded in the last week for which data is available.

According to WHO, the disease has claimed 2,600 lives so far and most of the victims are from Liberia. But the World Health Organization said that this number is definitely an underestimate as most patients are at home and not coming to hospitals for treatment.

The U.N. Security Council is set to hold discussions over the e Ebola threat late today.
In Sierra Leone, the government has ordered the people to stay at home starting Thursday at midnight. Only volunteers will be allowed to go house-to-house delivering bars of soap and information about how to prevent Ebola. WHO today said that there are several affected areas which still lack access to water or soap.

Authorities are hopeful that the shutdown would help them discover hundreds of new cases as many people preferred not to visit treatment center to get treated for Ebola out of fear that they would not survive even after going to hospital.