Door-to-door searches during a three-day curfew in Sierra Leone identified more than 350 suspected new cases of Ebola, according by the top US diplomat in the country.

Charge d’affairs Kathleen Fitzgibbon said teams of volunteers had also discovered 265 corpses, of which 216 have since been been buried, in an email to organisers of the curfew that has been seen by the Guardian.

Fitzgibbon said the home visits had identified a preliminary 358 new suspected cases, with 85 patients sent to treatment centres.

Although there had been some “challenges” during the curfew, which saw the normally chaotic streets of the capital Freetown replaced by eerie silence after the government ordered everyone to stay in doors, it could be seen as the “beginning of the end” of the Ebola epidemic, which has killed more than 2,800 people, primarily in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“The challenges included the late arrival of some materials, a rumor that the soap was infected with Ebola. Some people fled to the bush to avoid the house-to-house [checks] but came back for the last day,” she said, adding that there had also been a “slow response to pick up corpses”.

American public health institute the Centers for Disease Control has been heavily involved in the emergency response in Sierra Leone and is running the laboratory in Kenema, Sierra Leone’s third biggest city.

“Our team decided the three-day stay-at-home was a ‘watershed moment’ whose momentum must be turned into specific activities to ensure that we can reach our goal of isolating 70% of positive cases to reverse the upward trend of the epidemic,” Fitzgibbon said.



“The public needs to understand that this campaign did not end Ebola but can be the beginning of the end if everyone remains vigilant,” she added.

The email said one of the priorities was to ensure all bodies were buried correctly as funerals have been identified as one of the ways the disease has spread, with relatives touching the bodies of the deceased.

She said she was “extremely saddened” to hear of two incidents of the disease spreading recently, one in the area of Moyamba in which 24 people had died “as a result of participating in this funeral” and another in Kenema, in which 17 infections were traced to a funeral.

Fitzgibbon described one man in Kenema government hospital as a “hero”. He survived the disease and stayed in the hospital helping other patients, “in particular a young child whose parents are dead”, because he knew he was immune to contracting the virus again.

“We need to celebrate this man’s contribution ... survivors should not be stigmatised, but instead celebrated,” she said.

In Makeni, a large town three hours from Freetown, an Irish nun helping at a holding centre said 138 suspected cases had been identified with 19 bodies buried and 39 patients send five hours away for treatment.

“The good thing is we have had some survivors. One man and four women came back and they addressed the emergency people. It seemed to give them back the energy, because they are all exhausted,” said Sr Mary Sweeney.

Near-empty streets during a three-day curfew in Freetown. Photograph: Michael Duff/AP

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