Monrovians protest quarantine

Residents clashed with police officers who had cordoned off Monrovia's West Point district and its estimated 75,000 people on Wednesday. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had ordered the area quarantined after several Ebola patients who had fled an isolation ward returned. West Point residents had broken into the center Saturday and freed the patients under supervision for signs of the virus.

"It has become necessary to impose additional sanctions to curb the spread overall and particularly in those areas of intensity," Johnson Sirleaf said on Tuesday.

The lockdown of the neighborhoods also follows reports of dead bodies being dumped on the streets of the capital. In addition, many Liberians continued to doubt the existence of Ebola and disregarded prevention measures, Johnson Sirleaf said.

"We have been unable to control the spread due to continued denials, cultural burying practices, disregard for the advice of health workers and disrespect for the warnings by the government," Sirleaf said.

Liberia's Ebola death toll stands at 466. It has risen the fastest of the four nations most affected.

Nigeria's Ebola death toll has hit five, local newspaper Vanguard reported. Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh is the latest victim, having contracted the virus while treating Liberian government consultant Patrick Sawyer, the first person to die of Ebola in Nigeria. Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu called Adadevoh "one of the primary contacts ... the most senior doctor who participated in the management" of Sawyer.

Transmitted through contact with blood and other body fluids, the most lethal strain of Ebola has caused the current outbreak. According to the World Health Organization, 1,229 people have died of Ebola in Libera, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since it began in March. The WHO says 2,240 people has thus far been diagnosed with the disease.

mkg/glb (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)