UN: Ebola escalation could trigger major food crisis

The global famine warning system is predicting a major food crisis if the Ebola outbreak continues to grow exponentially over the coming months, and the United Nations still hasn't reached over 750,000 people in need of food in West Africa as prices spiral and farms are abandoned. On the eve of World Food Day on Thursday, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations are scrambling to scale up efforts to avert widespread hunger. ‘The world is mobilising and we need to reach the smallest villages in the most remote locations,’ Denise Brown, the UN World Food Program's regional director for West Africa, said in a statement. ‘Indications are that things will get worse before they improve. How much worse depends on us all.’ WFP has said it needs to reach 1.3 million people in need in hardest-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. So far, the UN agency has provided food to 534,000 people, and it expects to reach between 600,000 and 700,000 this month, Bettina Luescher, WFP's chief spokesperson in North America said. ‘And we are working hard to reach and scale up to 1.3 million eventually,’ according to AP.