FREETOWN (AFP) - Two people died in a riot in Sierra Leone sparked when health workers struggling to contain the Ebola epidemic tried to take a blood sample from an elderly woman, doctors told AFP on Wednesday.

A machete-wielding mob clashed with security personnel in the eastern city of Koidu and then went on a rampage on Tuesday, after preventing a medical team from taking the blood from the 90-year-old mother of a youth leader, doctors from the local hospital said.