AlHijjah 23, 1435, Oct 17, 2014, SPA -- Food prices have risen by an average of 24 percent across the three West African countries worst hit by the Ebola epidemic, forcing some families to reduce their nutritional intake to one meal a day, the World Food Program (WFP) said Friday. The food-producing regions of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea have been severely affected by the worst outbreak on record of the viral hemorrhagic fever that his killed about 4,500 people. Infection rates in the food-producing zones of Lofa and Bong County in Liberia, Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone, and Gueckedou in Guinea are among the highest in the region, with hundreds of farmers killed by Ebola. Decisions by the three governments to quarantine districts and restrict movements to contain the spread of the disease also have disrupted markets and led to food scarcity and panic buying, further elevating prices, WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have said. "Prices have risen by an average of 24 percent," WFP spokesman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva, adding that an assessment of major markets showed the prices of basic commodities were rising in the three countries as well as in neighboring Senegal. "Planting and harvesting is being disrupted with implications for food supply [in the future]. There is a high risk that prices will continue to increase during the coming harvest season," Byrs told Reuters.
