“There’s a perception in the population that it is a dangerous place,” said Philippe Barboza, an epidemiologist who heads the World Health Organization team here. " ‘The farther one is from the hospital, the better,’ ” said Mr. Barboza, summing up the widely held sentiment. “Even to have a meeting here is difficult.”

Elsewhere in the region, the battle against the disease is equally difficult. Dr. Fazlul Haque, the deputy representative of Unicef in Liberia, said health workers were struggling to keep up with the rapidly growing number of cases. Some hospitals are closed, he said, in part because health workers are afraid of getting sick — 63 health workers in Liberia have been infected so far, he said, with more than 30 deaths.

In the past week alone, about six medical staff members at a Catholic hospital in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, and 23 health workers in Bong County were infected, he said.

Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, declared a state of emergency this week, calling it necessary “for the very survival of our state and for the protection of the lives of our people.” The government has already quarantined some communities, including parts of western Liberia to stop the spread of the virus from Sierra Leone.

Dead bodies have been appearing on the streets and in houses throughout Monrovia, with people staging roadblocks to ensure that health workers remove them. But with hospitals closed in the capital, it was unclear how many of the victims had died of Ebola, or from other causes. A health worker said his burial team, one of 12, picked up seven bodies in Monrovia and surrounding areas on Thursday alone.