UN plans emergency food drops for West Africa’s Ebola affected countries

According to a top World Bank official, international agencies are exploring the possibilities of sending emergency truck convoys and air-dropping food to citizens of Liberia and Sierra Leone, who have been quarantined to stop the proliferation of the deadly Ebola virus.

Major airlines have shut down routes and many shops have closed, leaving large areas of the affected countries isolated and hungry.

World Bank senior director for health Tim Evans said that concerns over the situation in the Mano River region have been raised with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. The region, home to around one million people, is one of the epicentres of the lethal virus.

Reuters quoted Evans as saying: "There has been a lot of inflation in food prices and a lot of difficulty in getting food to the quarantined population.

"The World Bank, along with the UN and the World Health Organisation, is urgently assessing how to make emergency food deliveries, or they face the danger of a deepening health crisis from malnutrition and the spread of other diseases."

Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have been declared a Level Three food emergency – the highest threat level – by the UN’s World Food Programme (UNWFP). Over 1,000 victims have succumbed to Ebola in these three countries.

This is the first time that the WFP has faced six top-level crises at once, in Iraq, Syria, Cameroon, South Sudan and Central African Republic, in addition to the Ebola outbreak.