Ebola in Liberia Photos: West Point Slum Sealed to Prevent Spread of Disease

Tens of thousands of people have been barricaded in an impoverished slum in Liberia's capital to try to contain the spread of Ebola. Residents of West Point lined up to receive rice, cooking oil and drinking water after authorities put up barbed wire barricades.

West Point is a densely populated slum surrounded by floating sewage that occupies a half-mile long peninsula in Liberia's seaside capital.

These pictures by Getty Images photographer John Moore show the plight of those trapped in the slum.

Liberia is being hit especially hard by the dreaded virus, accounting for 576 of the 1,350 people that have been killed by Ebola in West Africa.

Some 2,473 people are believed to have contracted the disease, in four countries, making the current outbreak is bigger than the combined caseloads all previous Ebola outbreaks.

Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is sick and showing symptoms. To stop its spread, experts say, the sick should be isolated and not have any contact with the healthy. Overcrowded treatment centres, reluctance on the part of sick people to seek medical care, and burial practices that involve touching the dead have helped fuel the disease's spread.

Several counties and districts in Sierra Leone and Liberia have been cordoned off, and there are concerns this is slowing the supply of food and other goods to these areas. The World Food Programme is preparing to feed one million people affected by such travel restrictions.