EBOLA TESTS LIBERIAN PRESIDENT

Liberia's Ebola crisis will likely worsen in weeks to come, the country's president warned, acknowledging the toll the outbreak has taken on her nation.

"It is unlikely we are yet at the peak of Ebola's spread," President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in an email response to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

The epidemic, which is shaking up politics and the economy of the tiny West African country, presents 75-year-old Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf with a career-defining crisis two years before the end of her term.

Ebola has killed 1,426 of the 2,615 people that have contracted the virus in West Africa, with nearly half of the deaths in Liberia. Her government has been criticized for the relatively slow response to the outbreak and authorities face an uphill battle to contain the virus.

The outbreak has exposed a gulf between how Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf—the first woman elected president in Africa is viewed abroad and the more-complex image she has at home.

Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf has a long list of awards and honorary degrees from U.S. universities. She was among a trio of women to share the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for advancing women's rights. The rock singer Bono once called her "the toughest of minds, the tenderest of hearts." U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have made similarly fond remarks.

Back home, frustration has grown over the slow pace of Liberia's recovery from a 14-year civil war. Some Liberians suspect that Ebola is a government scheme to raise foreign-aid money. "It's because of lack of trust in governance that we have" this crisis, said Tiawan Gongloe, a former solicitor general who has become one of Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf's fiercer critics since he resigned from her administration. "The government said 'Ebola is here' and people didn't believe it."

To curb the outbreak, Liberian authorities have taken drastic steps. They have quarantined two high-density neighborhoods outside the capital Monrovia, while schools have been closed and converted into holding centers to monitor people showing symptoms of the disease. Some markets have also closed and most government workers are on forced leave.