Famine in parts of Africa likely, because of this outbreak.]
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that disruptions in food trade and marketing in the three West African countries most affected by Ebola have made food increasingly expensive and hard to come by, while labour shortages are putting the upcoming harvest season at serious risk. In Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, quarantine zones and restrictions on people’s movement aimed at combating the spread of the virus, although necessary, have seriously curtailed the movement and marketing of food. This has lead to panic buying, food shortages and significant food price hikes on some commodities, especially in urban centers, according to a special alert issued Tuesday by FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS).Bear in mind, that its projected this outbreak could kill as many as 20K people before its over. So far, its killed about 10% of that, and we're seeing these kinds of problems. Those 3 countries have a combined population of ~25 million people, and .0008 of them are projected to die due to ebola before its brought under control. How many of them are going to starve because of it? And given that many of the people in those countries seem to think that there's some kind of anti-African/anti-muslim plot behind efforts to combat the disease, I don't know if air dropping food into quarantined areas is going to do much good.