By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent, Monrovia
Liberia's few ebola treatment centres are overwhelmed with the sick and dying - with patients sharing beds and the dead laying near the desperately ill.
The country has accounted for more than half of the world's deaths from the latest ebola outbreak in West Africa and despite assurances from President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that it is under control, evidence on the ground seen by Sky News appears to suggest otherwise.
Whole communities are gripped with fear about the virus - and terrified citizens prefer to die alone, unaided because of the stigma attached to admitting to the disease.
Dozens of ebola victims are dying in their homes in Monrovia, increasing the chances of the virus spreading.
And official numbers of victims are almost certainly unrepresentative of the real death count because of the lack of co-ordination and nationwide spread of the disease.
Small teams of about half a dozen workers set out daily to retrieve the ebola dead - most of whom have died after suffering in secret.
Their relatives are reluctant to admit ebola has caused the death, as this invariably invites ostracism from their communities and targets them as potential virus carriers.
The body recovery squads - still called "burial teams" despite government orders that all ebola victims be cremated - are doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
They take extreme precautions, wearing multiple protective clothing layers along with goggles, boots, gloves and head coverings to try to stay safe.
Head of Team Three, Mark Korvoyan, told Sky News: "There's no day comes that people don't die in their house. Every day, every blessing day."
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Gallery: The Desperate Fight To Contain The Ebola Outbreak
A man rests outside the clinic.
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A woman is comforted after medical officials remove her husband, who is suspected of having the disease.
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Officials try to prevent themselves from spreading the disease.
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A local who has just brought his brother to the centre. He had to rely on plastic bags tied around his hands to try to protect himself.
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A man thought to be infected with ebola waits for treatment.
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Patients wait to be seen by medical staff.
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Workers try to decontaminate themselves.
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A worker with a child who may have caught ebola.
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A make-shift hand-washing station in Monrovia.
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Decontaminated boots of medical staff.
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The basic conditions make containing the disease very difficult.
There's simply too much work for the recovery teams to do, not enough hours in the day for them to track down the dead.
Even as they were picking up the latest corpses from the Elwa Treatment Centre, a young man was sobbing outside.
He cried: "Oh my God, I was just bringing a phone for my sister. Now they say she's died. What am I going to do? She has children..."
George Nyumah, like so many of Liberia's citizens, is frantically worried about catching the virus.
So the five children his sister cares for are left alone to fend for themselves in their one-room, corrugated iron shack home.
The eldest is 16, the youngest just two and they all sleep on the dirty mattress which their sick mother lay on in the days before she was taken into the ebola centre.
Their chances of catching or carrying the virus must be very high.
For that reason, their uncle George - and the rest of the extended family - will keep well away for 21 days, just to see if they develop signs of the killer disease.
Even if they survive the virus, they'll have to fight poverty and the community's suspicions in the weeks and months ahead.
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