ABIDJAN (REUTERS) - Five people have died in Sierra Leone's first confirmed outbreak of Ebola virus, the World Health Organisation said on Monday.

"Preliminary information received from the field indicates that one laboratory-confirmed case and five community deaths have been reported from Koindu chiefdom," the WHO said in a statement on its website.

Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever with a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent, has killed more than 100 people in neighbouring Guinea and Liberia since March.