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Food Prices Skyrocketing In Ebola-Hit Countries, Families Down To 1 Meal A Day

Food Prices Skyrocketing In Ebola-Hit Countries, Families Down To 1 Meal A Day
Reuters
MONROVIA, LIBERIA-SEPTEMBER 13: A sick child that health workers called Cynthia, lay on the a concrete rise as waited for Liberian Health workers to remove dead bodies before she could enter the Redemption Hospital in the poor neighborhood of Monrovia that locals call 'New Kru Town on Saturday September 13, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. His body was not picked up until after 3 pm; locals say he died from Ebola Since the Ebola outbreak Liberians have been living under extreme conditions as the Ebola virus worsens. (Photo by Michel du Cille/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
MONROVIA, LIBERIA-SEPTEMBER 13: A sick child that health workers called Cynthia, lay on the a concrete rise as waited for Liberian Health workers to remove dead bodies before she could enter the Redemption Hospital in the poor neighborhood of Monrovia that locals call 'New Kru Town on Saturday September 13, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. His body was not picked up until after 3 pm; locals say he died from Ebola Since the Ebola outbreak Liberians have been living under extreme conditions as the Ebola virus worsens. (Photo by Michel du Cille/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

* Hundreds of farmers have died in Ebola outbreak

* Planting and harvesting disrupted - WFP

* U.S. troops to start training health workers

* Food prices expected to rise further (Adds detail of food distribution, quote from U.S. major general, Air Cote d'Ivoire flights resuming)

By Stephanie Nebehay and James Harding Giahyue

GENEVA/MONROVIA, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Food prices have risen by an average of 24 percent across the three countries worst hit by the Ebola outbreak, the World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday, as aid workers scrambled to distribute emergency rations to the hungry.

The food-producing regions of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa have been severely affected by the worst outbreak on record of the viral haemorrhagic fever that has killed 4,546 across the three countries.

Infection rates in the food-producing zones of Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone, Lofa and Bong County in Liberia and Guéckédou in Guinea are among the highest in the region. Hundreds of farmers have died.

Decisions by the three governments to quarantine districts and restrict movements to contain the spread of the virus have also disrupted markets and led to food scarcity and panic buying, further pushing up prices, WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have said.

"Planting and harvesting are being disrupted with implications for food supply further down the line. There is a high risk that prices will continue to increase during the coming harvest season," said WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.

In the Liberian capital Monrovia, prices of cassava and imported rice, the main staple food, have jumped by 30 percent.

Aid workers in the crowded Monrovia neighborhood of Logan Town began distributing emergency rations of rice, bulgur wheat, peas and oil to around 1,000 residents on Friday.

"All our families are poor, let's be frank, so when WFP come to our rescue, along with Red Cross bringing food, they are so happy in the community," said Patricia Delaney, community chairperson of the neighborhood.

Byrs said WFP was carrying out a food security survey remotely using mobile phones to check the impact of the crisis on 2,400 families across the three worst affected nations.

In an effort to slow the spread of the virus, U.S. Major General Darryl Williams told reporters on Friday some 425 military personnel deployed to Liberia would start helping to train health workers there from next week.

"We plan to train 500 a week," he said, adding that the United States would also increase the number of helicopters sent to remote areas of the country to help with the Ebola response.

PICK-UP TRUCKS

Despite repeated warnings from the World Health Organization that travel bans will only worsen the suffering of Ebola-hit countries, some U.S. lawmakers are calling for a ban on travel from West Africa.

However, Air Cote d'Ivoire's Chief Executive Rene Decurey said his airline would resume flights next week to the capitals of the three worst affected countries.

"It's not good to isolate these countries, because when you isolate them people will always find a way," he told Reuters.

In another piece of positive news, the WHO said the Ebola outbreak in Senegal was officially over, though it said the country remained vulnerable to further cases of the deadly disease being imported.

The first round of a survey of 800 people in Sierra Leone's eastern districts of Kailahun and Kenema showed people were worse off in terms of food security, despite being the main producing areas.

"The survey showed that certain families have cut down to one meal a day or that people are eating food that costs less, such as cassava instead of rice," Byrs told Reuters.

The WFP also began distributing food on Friday to 265,000 people in the Waterloo suburb near Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown, an area that has recorded high infection rates.

"The aim of the distribution is to stabilize quarantined families by giving them enough to eat so that they do not leave their homes to look for food," it said in a statement.

The aid, which included rice, pulses, vegetable oil and salt, should meet families' needs for one month, WFP added.

The WFP said it was procuring 74 vehicles including mortuary vehicles and pick-up trucks, funded by the World Bank, to help tackle the crisis. A first batch of 30 vehicles is expected to arrive by air in Sierra Leone on Saturday.

"We have enough evidence now to know that the best ambulance is not a closed ambulance, it's a pick-up. Why is it better to have a pick-up? The driver is protected. The person can be put in the back on a stretcher," said WHO's Isabelle Nuttall. (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier, Emma Farge and Tom Miles; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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Before You Go

1
Ebola is highly infectious and even being in the same room as someone with the disease can put you at risk
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Not as far as we know. Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms begin, and it spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of patients. It is not, from what we know of the science so far, an airborne virus. So contact with the patient's sweat, blood, vomit, feces or semen could cause infection, and the body remains infectious after death. Much of the spread in west Africa has been attributed to the initial distrust of medical staff, leaving many to be treated at home by loved ones, poorly equipped medics catching the disease from patients, and the traditional burial rites involving manually washing of the dead body. From what we know already, you can't catch it from the air, you can't catch it from food, you can't catch it from water.
2
You need to be worried if someone is sneezing or coughing hard
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Apart from the fact that sneezing and coughing aren't generally thought to be symptoms of Ebola, the disease is not airborne, so unless someone coughed their phlegm directly into your mouth, you wouldn't catch the disease. Though medical staff will take every precaution to avoid coming into contact with the body of an infected person at all costs, with stringent hygiene there should be a way to contain the virus if it reaches the UK.
3
Cancelling all flights from west Africa would stop the spread of Ebola
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This actually has pretty serious implications. British Airways suspended its four-times-weekly flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of March, the only direct flight to the region from the UK. In practice, anyone can just change planes somewhere else and get to Britain from Europe, north Africa, or the Middle East. And aid agencies say that flight cancellations are hampering efforts to get the disease under control, they rely on commercial flights to get to the infected regions. Liberia's information minister, Lewis Brown, told the Telegraph this week that BA was putting more people in danger. "We need as many airlines coming in to this region as possible, because the cost of bringing in supplies and aid workers is becoming prohibitive," he told the Telegraph. "There just aren't enough seats on the planes. I can understand BA's initial reaction back in August, but they must remember this is a global fight now, not just a west African one, and we can't just be shut out." Christopher Stokes, director of MSF in Brussels, agreed: “Airlines have shut down many flights and the unintended consequence has been to slow and hamper the relief effort, paradoxically increasing the risk of this epidemic spreading across countries in west Africa first, then potentially elsewhere. We have to stop Ebola at source and this means we have to be able to go there.”
4
Temperature screening at airports is an effective way to stop those who have the disease from travelling
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The screening process is pretty porous, especially when individuals want to subvert it. Wake up on the morning of your flight, feel a bit hot, and you definitely don't want to be sent to an isolation booth for days and have to miss your flight. Take an ibuprofen and you can lower your temperature enough to get past the scanners. And if you suspect you have Ebola, you might be desperate to leave, seeing how much better the treatment success has been in western nations. And experts have warned that you cannot expect people to be honest about who they have had contact with. Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola victim who died in Texas, told officials he had not been in contact with anyone with the disease, but had in fact visited someone in the late stages of the virus, though he said he believed it was malaria. The extra screening that the US implemented since his death probably wouldn't have singled out Duncan when he arrived from hard-hit Liberia last month, because he had no symptoms while travelling.
5
Border staff should stop people coming in to the country who are at risk
LEON NEAL via Getty Images
They're not doctors, and it's a monumental task to train 23,500 people who work for the UK Border Agency how to correctly diagnose a complex disease, and spot it in the millions of people who come through British transport hubs. Public Health England has provided UK Border Force with advice on the assessment of an unwell patient on entry to UK, but they can't be expected to check everyone.
6
Screening at British airports should be implemented to stop unwell people coming in from affected areas
ASSOCIATED PRESS
As mentioned before, the UK, especially London, is a major transport hub. Unlike the US, most of those coming from west Africa will have crossed through Europe, so infected people could be coming from practically anywhere, not just flights directly from those countries. This would require the UK to screen every returning traveller, as people could return to the UK from an affected country through any port of entry. This would be huge numbers of low risk people, at vast, vast expense.
7
Ebola doesn't have a cure
John Moore via Getty Images
There are several cures currently being tested for Ebola. They include the ZMapp vaccine which was administered to British sufferer William Pooley and two other Americans who caught the disease in west Africa and they all recovered. Supplies of the drug have now run dry, and it has not been through clinical trials to prove its effectiveness. Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the company that makes ZMapp, says the drug's supplies are exhausted and that it takes months to make even a small batch. But an Ebola cure is very much on the horizon, and would have come sooner had it been seen as any kind of priority for drug companies before it started reaching the western world.
8
Ebola is a death sentence
ASSOCIATED PRESS
It is true that certain strains of Ebola have had a death rate of 90%. However, with this particular epidemic the stats are more positive, a death rate of around 60%. Those who have decent, strong immune systems, are able to access intravenous fluids and scrupulous health care are far more likely to survive, which is why the survival rate of westerners who contract the disease is far better. Experts have suggested that, rather than waste money on pointless airport screenings, funds could be used to improve infrastructure in the affected nations to help halt the spread of the disease at source.
9
Ebola turns you into a zombie
Renee Keith via Getty Images
Just, no.
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