UN chief heads to West Africa in Ebola solidarity Ban Ki-moon
ban ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon

UN – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday that he’s heading to West Africa to demonstrate the UN’s solidarity with the countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak, and to see for himself how the world is responding.The UN chief will leave on Wednesday night and visit hard-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea as well as Mali. He will also visit Ghana, where the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response is headquartered.

“I want to see the response for myself and show my solidarity with those affected, and urge even greater global action,” Ban told a news conference.

In the world’s largest Ebola outbreak, some 18,500 people have been infected, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Of those, more than 6,800 have died.

Ban said local communities and national governments are engaged, there has been “an impressive outpouring of life-saving contributions from across Africa and across the world . . . and we are beginning to see improvements”.

But he said there is still a shortage of people and resources to tackle Ebola, and warned that “now is not the time to ease up on our efforts”.

“As long as there is one case of Ebola, the risk remains,” Ban said. “We must do everything we can to get to zero.”

During his trip, Ban said he will meet with five presidents and staff from the UN mission known as UNMEER. He said he will also try to visit treatment facilities provided by key countries such as the US, Britain and France, and some other local treatment centres.

The secretary-general said he will be travelling with Dr Margaret Chan, the World Health Organisation director-general, and UN Ebola chief Dr David Nabarro. He said Tony Banbury, who heads UNMEER and is in Conakry, will also join the trip.

Meanwhile, border closures, quarantines and crop losses in West African nations battling the Ebola virus could lead to as many as one million people going hungry, UN food agencies said on Wednesday.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said the disease and the resulting restrictions had “caused a significant shock to the food and agriculture sectors in the affected countries”.

“The loss of productivity and household income due to Ebola-related deaths and illness as well as people staying away from work, for fear of contagion, is compounding an economic slowdown in the three countries,” the agencies said in a joint statement.

Restrictions put in place to curb the disease were also “seriously hindering people’s access to food, threatening their livelihoods, disrupting food markets and processing chains, and exacerbating shortages stemming from crop losses”.

Half a million people are currently in severe danger of going hungry, but this could “top one million by March 2015 unless access to food is drastically improved and measures are put in place to safeguard crop and livestock production”.

Labour shortages have interrupted planting and weeding of crops, while fear of contagion is keeping people away from markets.

“The outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has been a wake-up call for the world,” said WFP emergency response coordinator Denise Brown in Dakar.

“The virus is having a terrible impact on the three worst-hit countries and will continue to affect many people’s access to food for the foreseeable future,” she said.

“While working with partners to make things better, we must be prepared for them to get worse.” – AFP

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