92 bodies and at least 56 new infections have been discovered in Sierra Leone during a nationwide Ebola lockdown.

The three-day lockdown came into effect on Friday and is aimed at stemming the worst Ebola epidemic on record.

The country's six million residents have been ordered to stay indoors as volunteers circulate to educate people about the outbreak and isolate the sick.

In a televised address, the country's President Ernest Bai Koroma explained "these are extraordinary times and extraordinary times require extraordinary measures."

The new cases were discovered as officials visited homes to investigate the extent of the outbreak.

Stephen Gaojia, head of the Emergency Operations Centre which leads the Ebola response, said the lockdown is likely to be extended.

"Even though the exercise has been a huge success so far, it has not been concluded in some metropolitan cities like Freetown and Kenema," he said.

The West African Ebola outbreak has so far killed more than 2,600 people and infected around twice as many since March.

More than 20,000 people could become infected with the deadly Ebola virus, the World Health Organisation has claimed. Nearly 40% of the total number of reported cases have occurred within the past month.

The organisation also commented that the virus was still being spread in a "substantial number of localities" across the continent.