Police in the Liberian capital Monrovia fired live rounds and tear gas yesterday to disperse a stone-throwing crowd trying to break out of a quarantine imposed on their neighbourhood because of the Ebola virus, witnesses said.

At least four people were injured in the clash at the sprawling ocean-front West Point neighbourhood, witnesses said. It was unclear whether anyone was wounded by gunfire, though a Reuters photographer saw a young boy with his leg badly severed just above the ankle.

“The soldiers are using live rounds,” said army spokesman Dessaline Allison. “The soldiers applied the rules of engagement. They did not fire on peaceful citizens. There will be medical reports if (an injury) was from bullet wounds.”

The epidemic of the hemorrhagic disease, which can kill up to 90 per cent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy.

The deadly epidemic is ravaging Liberia, Sierra leone and Guinea

As the Geneva-based World Health Organisation rushed to ramp up the global response to the outbreak, including emergency food deliveries to quarantined zones, it announced that deaths had risen to 1,229 as of August 16, out of 2,240 cases.

Liberian authorities introduced a nationwide curfew on Tuesday and put the teeming West Point neighbourhood under quarantine to curb the spread of the disease.

Liberia recorded 53 deaths between August 14 and 16, far more than any other affected country, according to figures by the World Health Organisation.

Attempts to isolate the worst affected areas of the country and neighbouring Sierra Leone have raised fears of unrest in one of the world’s poorest regions should communities start to run low on food and medical supplies.

Witnesses said the clash started after security forces blocked roads to West Point early yesterday with tables, chairs and barbed wire.

Security forces came in to escort the local commissioner out of the neighbourhood, they said.