Click photo to enlargeA Liberian policeman warns residents of the West Point area to be calm, as they wait for a second consignment of food from the Liberian Government to be handed out, at the West Point area, near the central city area of Monrovia, Liberia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2014. Two new cases of Ebola have emerged in Nigeria and, in an alarming development, they are outside the group of caregivers who treated an airline passenger who arrived with Ebola and died, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said Friday.(AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Sierra Leone voted to pass a new amendment to its health act, imposing possible jail time for anyone caught hiding an Ebola patient, a practice the World Health Organization believes has contributed to a major underestimation of the current outbreak.
The new law, an update to the country's 1960 Public Health Act, was passed on Friday and imposes prison terms of up to two years for violators, said lawmaker Ansumana Jaiah Kaikai.
The measure was necessary to compel residents to cooperate with government officials, Kaikai said, noting that some residents had resisted steps to combat Ebola including the construction of isolation centers in their communities.
Liberian soldiers keep order at a food distribution center, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014, at the West Point area, one of the places where the Ebola virus has claimed lives, in Monrovia, Liberia. Calm returned Thursday to a slum in the Liberian capital that was sealed off in the government's attempt to halt the spread of Ebola, a day after clashes erupted between residents and security forces, but now the tens of thousands of residents worried about getting food. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh) (Abbas Dulleh/AP)
"This amendment seeks to address these emerging bottlenecks," he added. The amendment now goes for presidential assent.
The country's health ministry warned back in June that it was a serious crime to shelter someone infected with Ebola.
Sierra Leone has been hit hard by the current outbreak, recording at least 910 cases and 392 deaths, according to figures released Friday by the World Health Organization.
A total of 2,615 infections and 1,427 deaths have been recorded across West Africa.
These numbers don't capture all cases in part because families hide patients, fearing high fatality rates and the stigma that comes with a positive diagnosis, the U.N. health agency said in a situation assessment released Friday.
New treatment centers in Liberia are being overwhelmed by patients that were not previously identified, suggesting an "invisible caseload" of patients that is going undetected, the WHO said.
Countries in the region and elsewhere in Africa have continued to impose travel restrictions, even though this hasn't been recommended by the WHO.
Ivory Coast announced late Friday it was closing land borders with neighboring Guinea and Liberia. Gabon, Senegal, South Africa and Cameroon had all earlier in the week imposed restrictions on some or all of the four countries with confirmed Ebola cases.
A man points, right, as workers offload Ebola related aid goods from Russian at the airport in Conakry, Guinea, Friday, Aug. 22, 2014. Over 2,000 people have been sickened in this outbreak — more than the caseloads of all the previous two-dozen Ebola outbreaks combined, according to the World Health Organization. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah) (Youssouf Bah/AP)
On Saturday, the Philippine government said it was recalling 115 peacekeepers from Liberia because of the health risk posed by Ebola.
Speaking in parliament on Friday, Sierra Leone majority leader Ibrahim Bundu accused development partners of being slow to respond to the Ebola crisis and said Sierra Leone had suffered "abandonment and isolation from those we viewed to be our biggest friends" in the region and beyond.
"These ugly developments are evidenced in the cancellations of flights, closing of borders, reduction of operational hours of banks and further isolation by shutting down businesses at the time of greatest need," he said.
He said lawmakers would soon review the country's partnerships "so as to form a permanent record of who are true friends are."
FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2014 file photo, a Nigerian port health official uses a thermometer on a passengers at the arrivals hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria. Two new cases of Ebola have emerged in Nigeria and, in an alarming development, they are outside the group of caregivers who treated an airline passenger who arrived with Ebola and died, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said Friday, Aug. 22, 2014. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, File) (Sunday Alamba/AP)
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Associated Press writer Marc-Andre Boisvert contributed reporting from Abidjan, Ivory Coast.