Hunger: Ebola's hidden toll in Sierra Leone

Matteo Fraschini Koffi and Kristin Palitza

Freetown (dpa) - Aminata Kamara is only three years old but all alone. Within less than six months, West Africa's Ebola epidemic killed 14 members of her family, including her mother, her father and two brothers.

The toddler now lives with a 25-year-old cousin in a small shack in Wellington, a poor suburb of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. All they own is a mirror and an old sofa, on which they both sleep.

"It's a miracle that she is still with us," says Paulyanna Kanu, child protection officer with local charity Family Homes Movement (FHM), which supports the girl with basic food items, including rice, oil and sardines.

In Sierra Leone, one of three west African nations hardest hit, almost 11,000 people have been infected with the Ebola virus, of which more than 3,300 have died.

Households reporting a new Ebola case - like Aminata's - are quarantined for at least 21 days, the official incubation period. Many homes have been isolated numerous times, for weeks or months on end.

Cut off from the outside world, those under quarantine can't go to work, or to the market to buy food.

Just last week, Sierra Leone placed 700 homes in the capital under Ebola quarantine after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the number of new cases was rising again across the former British colony of roughly six million people.

Transmission remains "widespread" in Sierra Leone, which reported 76 new confirmed cases in the week to February 8, according to the WHO.

"It's heartbreaking to see children who have lost their parents quarantined ... Their physical appearance shows they are weak and very needy," says Patrick Mahoi, programme unit manager at charity Plan International in Sierra Leone.

Hunger - and subsequent efforts to procure food - is often a cause for the ongoing spread of the Ebola virus. "I escaped from quarantine several times in search of food. I know it's risky. Now with these food supplies, I have peace to stay at home," a young man told Plan aid workers.

Although Sierra Leone has abundant natural resources, a decade-long civil war severely devastated the country's economy and destroyed infrastructure.

The West African nation ranks 183 out of 195 countries on the 2014 United Nations Human Development Index. Its malnutrition rates are among the world's highest, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

When an Ebola epidemic broke out in neighbouring Guinea in December 2013 and quickly spread to Sierra Leone, an already poor nation became even poorer.

Productivity and household income have been declining due to Ebola-related deaths and illness, especially in the agricultural sector.

Sierra Leone's gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to grow by 11.3 per cent in 2014, but growth dwindled to 4 per cent due to the epidemic, according to the World Bank.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned the production of staple foods like rice could decline by 8 per cent this year.

"The outbreak has revealed the vulnerability of current food production systems," said FAO regional representative for Africa, Bukar Tijani.

Within less than a year, roughly half a million people became severely food insecure, according to FAO. Another 2 million are vulnerable to food insecurity.

The WFP has distributed food to more than 1.4 million people since May, including to patients in treatment and holding centres, quarantined families as well as discharged Ebola patients. Various other charities have handed out food as well.

Government is keenly aware that measures like food distribution can only temporarily patch the underlying economic problems. 

"We must take action to enable economic and social recovery," President Ernest Bai Koroma announced on national television in late January.

The first step to achieve this was to reach zero Ebola cases by mid-April, said Koroma. But what measures the president is planning to implement to reverse the economic downturn have yet to be revealed.

 

 

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Matteo Fraschini Koffi - Giornalista Freelance