TEMPO.CO, Freetown - Sierra Leone has begun the three-day shutdown since yesterday to contain Ebola outbreak, not long after the United Nations Security Council declared the deadly disease was a threat to world peace. The shutdown policy was enforced for six million residents in Sierra Leone, except for vital workers such as paramedics and security forces.

About 30,000 volunteers will visit houses to educate residents and provide them with hand soap, as well as to look for patients or bodies hidden in houses.

However, the policy was criticized by health experts saying that the coercive moves to contain the epidemic would backfire and were difficult to implement.

Sierra Leone’s president Ernest Koroma said the population would help the effort by following the volunteers' advice.

"These are extraordinary times and extraordinary times need extraordinary measures," Koroma said as quoted by the Guardian yesterday.

Meanwhile in New York, U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution declaring the Ebola outbreak in Africa a threat to international peace and security. As quoted by Reuters, U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-Moon said Thursday that he would create a special mission to combat the disease and deployed staff in the worst-affected scenes.

"The gravity and scale of the situation require a level of international action unprecedented for a health emergency," Ban said.

THE GUARDIAN | REUTERS | AL JAZEERA