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Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Five people are being infected with Ebola every hour in Sierra Leone and the rate is expected to double by the end of October, the Save the Children charity has warned.Justin Forsyth, the chief executive of Save the Children charity, said on Thursday that “the scale of the Ebola epidemic is devastating and growing every day”.

“We need a coordinated international response that ensures treatment centres are built and staffed immediately,” Forsyth said.

The charity issued the appeal as Britain hosted a conference in London to gather support for the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone, its former colony.

Britain has provided 143 new treatment beds so far and promised almost 600 more in the coming months, but Save the Children said other countries must join the fight.

There were an estimated 765 new cases last week, the charity said, but only 327 beds across the country.

The number of cases was likely to be “massively” under-reported, as “untold numbers of children are dying anonymously at home or in the streets”, it said.

“We’re facing the frightening prospect of an epidemic which is spreading like wildfire across Sierra Leone, with the number of new cases doubling every three weeks,” said Rob MacGillivray, the charity’s country director in Sierra Leone .

“It’s very difficult at this stage to even give accurate figures on the number of children who are dying from Ebola, as monitoring systems cannot keep pace with the outbreak.”

Meanwhile, Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says she is “very angry” with a fellow Liberian who travelled to Texas after being infected with Ebola.

In an interview with Canadian public broadcaster CBC broadcast on Thursday by CNN, Johnson Sirleaf said that she would consult with lawyers as to what to do when he comes home.

Binyah Kesselly, board chairperson of the Liberia Airport Authority, told CNN that the authority would “seek to prosecute” Thomas Duncan if he lied on his health questionnaire about having come in contact with Ebola before leaving Liberia.

Duncan is critically ill and in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas, US health authorities said. He was turned away once from the hospital, even though he presented with a fever and told the hospital staff he had recently arrived from Liberia.

Texas health authorities have broadened their circle of investigation to about 100 people who may have come into close contact with Duncan between the time he arrived in Texas about September 20 and was checked into hospital on September 28.

The incubation period is a maximum 21 days.

“I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth,” Johnson Sirleaf told CBC. “The fact that he knew [he was exposed to the virus] and he left the country is unpardonable, quite frankly.”

She regretted that after the US has done so much to help Liberia deal with the epidemic, “he’s gone there and . . . put some Americans in a state of fear, and put them at some risk.”

The patient, who worked as a driver for a cargo company, helped to transport his pregnant sister-in-law to a hospital in the capital after she tested positive for Ebola, neighbours and government officials said.

Information Minister Lewis Brown assured the international community that measures to screen for Ebola symptoms at Liberia’s international airports and exit points were “stringent”.

“We understand his tests, like all others who are being permitted to travel … showed he manifested no signs of fever or any other symptoms of the virus,” said Brown, noting that the incident demonstrated “a clear international dimension of the Ebola crisis”. – Al Jazeera