Samuel Sam-Sumana, vice president of Sierra Leone, has voluntarily placed himself under a three-week quarantine after the death from Ebola of one of his security personnel last Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Sierra Leone recorded 18 new cases of Ebola last week, up from 16 the week before.

"This virus has affected thousands of our people and has nearly brought our country to its knees," Sam-Sumana said in a statement. "We all have a collective responsibility to break the chains of transmission by isolating the sick and reporting all known contacts, by not touching the dead ... We cannot be complacent. We must work together as a nation to end Ebola now."

President Ernest Bai Koroma will attend a European Union conference on Ebola in Belgium, the AP reports. In the presidents' absence, Vice President Sam-Sumana will become acting president, carrying out his duties from home.

The present rise in Ebola cases comes as a surprise, The New York Times reported on Saturday. Health officials had thought the disease was receding. "We worked so hard," Emmanuel Conteh, an Ebola response coordinator, told the Times. "It is a shame to all of us."

[Photo credit: AP Images]