Battling Ebola in west Africa

A man, thought to be a victim of the Ebola virus, lies dead on a street in Liberia, the country worst hit by the epidemic.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf expects the Ebola crisis to worsen as health workers struggle with inadequate supplies, a lack of outside support and a population living in fear.

The disease, whose symptoms include fever, vomiting and diarrhea, has infected over 5,000 people in the region and could infect as many as 20,000 by November without international intervention to contain its spread.

Senegal and Nigeria have implemented strict measures to isolate the ill and track down further possible cases, and the World Health Organization said both countries are managing to halt the spread of the disease.

A pregnant woman, suspected of contracting Ebola, is lifted into an ambulance in Freetown.

In the most extreme strategy employed by a nation since the epidemic began, Sierra Leone ordered its six million residents to stay indoors for almost a week, as 30,000 volunteers circulated to educate households as well as isolate the sick and remove the dead.

The country’s army also sealed off its borders with Liberia and Guinea, joining similar actions by other nations in the region who also fear the contagion. The move, however, complicates international efforts to fight the disease.

Much of the international medical assistance so far has been provided by French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, whose workers are seen here.

Amid complaints from aid workers and regional leaders that the world was doing too little, U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans to send 3,000 troops to build 17 treatment centres and train thousands of healthcare workers.

The U.S. move has been welcomed, but it was accompanied by calls for other nations to follow suit, since the disease was still spreading faster than the moves being made to contain it.

Laboratory technicians of the company Icon Genetics prepare proteins from tobacco plants in a laboratory in Berlin.

The scale of the Ebola outbreak has prompted a scramble for experimental drugs, most of which are still in the early stages of testing.

ZMapp has already been used to treat several Ebola patients who have since recovered, but doctors cannot say for sure whether the drug helped them or whether they would have recovered anyway.

The Ebola virus has killed about 50 percent of those infected in the current epidemic.