The UN Security Council declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a "threat to international peace and security" on Thursday in a resolution calling for global assistance and the lifting of travel bans in regions affected by Ebola.

In a unanimous resolution, the Security Council called on member states, airlines and shipping companies to lift travel and trade restictions, saying the measures "contribute to the further isolation of the affected countries and undermine their efforts to respond to the Ebola outbreak."

The Ebola crisis is the second public health issue that the Security Council, tasked with the maintenance of global peace and security, has ever discussed, following AIDS.

Samanthan Power, US ambassador to the United Nations, pointed out that 130 UN member states co-sponsored the resolution - the most in the history of the Security Council.

"This is a degree of unanimity and unity that we rarely see," Power said. "But if today's resolution is not followed by action on a scale and scope commensurate to the virus, this resolution will be cited years from now as evidence that we raised hopes that we didn't deliver on."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was setting up a UN mission that will be on the ground before the end of September and will focus on stopping the outbreak, treating Ebola patients, ensuring delivery of essential services, preserving peace and stability, and preventing further outbreaks.

Ban said the international community needs to increase its assistance twenty-fold to ensure the almost 1 billion dollars necessary to stop the outbreak.

Humanitarian organizations warned Thursday that famine is looming over Sierra Leone because of the Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 2,600 people in West Africa according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

"We expect severe hunger by March," said Jochen Moninger, Sierra Leone director for German aid agency Welthungerhilfe.

In Geneva, WHO said the suspected and confirmed cases stood at 5,335 in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Food supplies are dwindling and prices have soared with numerous villages quarantined and food transports restricted in a bid to halt the spread of the deadly virus, a Welthungerhilfe study found.

In Sierra Leone, which has a largely agrarian economy, only 40 per cent of fields have been farmed this year because of the epidemic, the report said.

"The economy has collapsed," Moninger said. "Foreign firms left the country. Markets and trade routes were shut down."

At least six members of a delegation visiting a rural community in south-eastern Guinea to educate people about Ebola were killed by locals, witnesses told dpa Thursday.

The attack happened while the delegation of government officials, including the governor of N'Zerekore, the largest city in the country's south-east, and journalists visited the administrative area of Womey, near Liberia and Ivory Coast borders.

Three people were reportedly held captive in Womey, a witness told dpa.

The United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP) said it has been promised donations of almost 22 million dollars to help Ebola-hit countries. The International Fund for Agricultural Development, another Rome-based UN agency dealing with nutrition issues, has pledged another 3 million dollars for rural communities.

The World Bank has promised a combined 18.7 million dollars for Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

"Medical treatment without food and water will not effectively combat the disease," WFP chief Ertharin Cousin said.

The World Bank has warned that the haemorrhagic fever outbreak could deal a "catastrophic" blow to already fragile West African countries.

Unchecked Ebola could cause gross domestic product to contract in 2015 by nearly 12 per cent Liberia, 9 per cent in Sierra Leone and 2 per cent in Guinea, the World Bank said.

The European Parliament called on governments to pledge more money, equipment and personnel to fight Ebola.

"We need to take resolute action and mobilize all resources. ... We must act now," said Charles Goerens of the liberal ALDE group.

Sierra Leone is set to start a three-day national lockdown Friday, in a bid to gain control over the outbreak, which was detected in March in the region.

Citizens will be confined to their homes while health workers go door to door to identify and trace Ebola cases and educate people about the virus.

"We need to restrict movement for us all to avoid body contact," government spokesman Abdulai Baratay said.

Doctors Without Borders criticized the measure, saying quarantines could prompt people to hide potential Ebola cases and further spread the disease.

"It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola, as they end up driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers," the group said.

Instead, countries urgently need more health workers and equipment to tackle the epidemic, the non-governmental medical group said.

Ebola causes massive haemorrhaging and is transmitted through contact with blood and other bodily fluids. If untreated, it has a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent.