If anyone dies at home in Sierra Leone, officials have to assume it is Ebola. Burial teams come in to remove and bury the bodies safely, even if it subsequently turns out they died of something else.
Mohammad Banguia, a medical student and one of the ministry of health team who took the samples, said: "It's very important because if there is no specimen there will be no result, so no proof that this person died of Ebola.
"If people don't know for sure who died of the virus, then it will continue to spread easily.