Kinshasa, Congo — As Congo copes with its biggest outbreak of mpox, scientists warn discrimination against gay and bisexual men on the continent could make it worse.

In November, the World Health Organization reported that mpox, also known as monkeypox, was being spread via sex in Congo for the first time.

That is a significant departure from previous flare-ups, where the virus mainly sickened people in contact with diseased animals.

Mpox has been in parts of central and west Africa for decades, but it was not until 2022 that it was documented to spread via sex; most of the 91,00 people infected in approximately 100 countries that year were gay or bisexual men.

In Africa, unwillingness to report symptoms could drive the outbreak underground, said Dimie Ogoina, an infectious diseases specialist at the Niger Delta University in Nigeria.

“It could be that because homosexuality is prohibited by law in most parts of Africa, many people do not come forward if they think they have been infected with mpox,” Ogoina said.

WHO officials said they identified the first sexually transmitted cases of the more severe type of mpox in Congo last spring, shortly after a resident of Belgium who “identified himself as a man who has sexual relations with other men” arrived in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital. The U.N. health agency said five other people who had sexual contact with the man later became infected with mpox.

“We have been underestimating the potential of sexual transmission of mpox in Africa for years,” said Ogoina, who with his colleagues, first reported in 2019 that mpox might be spreading via sex.

Gaps in monitoring make it a challenge to estimate how many mpox cases are linked to sex, he said. Still, most cases of mpox in Nigeria involve people with no known contact with animals, he noted.

In Congo, there have been about 13,350 suspected cases of mpox, including 607 deaths through the end of November with only about 10% of cases confirmed by laboratories. But how many infections were spread through sex isn’t clear. WHO said about 70% of cases are in children under 15.

During a recent trip to Congo to assess the outbreak, WHO officials found there was “no awareness” among health workers that mpox could be spread sexually, resulting in missed cases.

WHO said health authorities had confirmed sexual transmission of mpox “between male partners and simultaneously through heterosexual transmission” in different parts of the country.

Mpox typically causes symptoms including a fever, skin rash, lesions and muscle soreness for up to one month. It is spread via close contact and most people recover without needing medical treatment.

During the 2022 major international outbreak, mass vaccination programs were undertaken in some countries, including Canada, Britain and the U.S., and targeted those at highest risk — gay and bisexual men. But experts say that’s not likely to work in Africa for several reasons, including the stigma against gay communities.

“I don’t think we’ll see the same clamoring for vaccines in Africa that we saw in the West last year,” said Dr. Boghuma Titanji, an assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

She said that the gay and bisexual men most at risk of mpox might be fearful of coming forward in a broad immunization program. Countries should work on ways to give the shots — if available — in a way that wouldn’t stigmatize them, she said.

Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyemba, general director of Congo’s National Institute of Biomedical Research, said two provinces in Congo had reported clusters of mpox spread through sex, a concerning development.

There’s no licensed vaccine in Congo, and it would be hard to get enough shots for any large-scale program, Muyemba said. The country is trying to get a Japanese mpox vaccine, but regulatory issues are complicating the situation, he said.

Globally, only one vaccine has been authorized against mpox, made by Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic. Supplies are very limited and even if they were available, they would have to be approved by the African countries using them or by WHO. To date, the vaccine has only been available in Congo through research.

Without greater efforts to stop the outbreaks in Africa, Ogoina predicted that mpox would continue to infect new populations, warning that the disease could also spark outbreaks in other countries, similar to the global emergency WHO declared last year.
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Socorro, Colombia — In northeast Colombia, police guard warehouses stacked high with confiscated timber with a noble new destiny: transformation into homes for bees beleaguered by pesticides and climate change.

The illegally harvested wood is used in the Santander department’s “Timber Returns Home” initiative, building hives since 2021 to house the little pollinators so critical to human survival.

So far, the project has seen about 200 cubic meters of wood transformed into 1,000 beehives, with another 10,000 planned for the next phase, according to the Santander environmental authority.

Previously, confiscated timber was turned into sawdust, donated to municipalities for projects … and sometimes just left to rot.

Now it is being repurposed to help address the “extremely serious problem” of possible bee extinction, said biologist German Perilla, director of the Honey Bee Impact Foundation.

About three-quarters of crops producing fruits or seeds for human consumption depend on pollination, but the U.N. has warned that 40% of invertebrate pollinators — particularly bees and butterflies — risk global extinction.

“The main threat is that we will run out of trees and there will be no flowers, because without flowers there are no bees, without bees there are no humans, and we will run out of food,” said beekeeper Maria Acevedo, one of the beneficiaries of the project.

In 2023 alone, she told AFP, she lost more than half of her hives. She blames pesticides used in nearby production of crops such as coffee.

Multiple threats

According to official data, some 3,000 hives, each able to house around 50,000 bees, die off in Colombia each year. Laboratory tests found traces of the insecticide fipronil in most of the dead insects.

Colombia has issued a ban on fipronil — already banned in Europe and restricted in the United States and China — starting February 2024.

According to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, higher temperatures, droughts, floods and other extreme events caused by climate change reduces nectar-bearing flowers that bees feed on, and studies have also linked bee infertility to heat stress.

The Santander environmental authority seizes some 1,000 cubic meters of illegally felled timber in anti-trafficking operations in Santander every year.

The country lost 123,517 hectares of trees in 2022, mainly in the Amazon — the world’s largest rainforest.

Nearly half of all timber traded in Colombia is of illegal origin, according to the environment ministry. 
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Yuma, Arizona — As the world pivots from planet-warming fossil fuels to renewable energy, a new pollution problem is rearing its head: What to do with old or worn-out solar panels? 

Thousands of photovoltaic slabs are being installed across the United States every day, particularly in the sunny west and south of the country, as states like California race to toward greener energy production. 

But with an expected lifespan of around 30 years, the first wave of solar installations is now coming to the end of its usefulness, sparking a rush to recycle things that might otherwise end up in the landfill. 

“What is about to happen is a tsunami of solar panels coming back into the supply chain,” said Adam Saghei, chief executive of Arizona-based We Recycle Solar. 

“One of the challenges with any industry is, there hasn’t been that much planning for a circular economy,” he said. “(Solar) is a sustainable form of energy; there needs to be a plan for the retirement of those assets.” 

Saghei’s plan involves, among other things, reusing panels. 

Up to 5% of panels either have a minor production defect or get damaged during transport or installation. 

These still-working panels can be refurbished and diverted to other markets, often abroad, Saghei said. 

But for the panels that no longer function, either because they’re decrepit, or because they were damaged beyond use during installation, or smashed by hailstones, there’s treasure to be found. 

“We’re doing what’s called urban mining,” Saghei said, referring to a process that took his engineers three years to perfect. 

That mining recovers silver, copper, aluminum, glass and silicone, all commodities that have a value on the open market. 

While the uses for the metals might be obvious, what to do with silicone and glass is less so, but nonetheless intriguing. 

“You can use it for sand traps on golf courses, you can refine it for sandblast mix, you can also use it for the stones or the glass mix that you get for outdoor fireplaces,” Saghei said. 

With the capacity to process up to 7,500 panels every day at the plant in Yuma, a surprisingly small amount goes to waste. 

“Depending on the make and model of the panels … we’re able to get up to 99 percent recovery rate,” he said. 

Logistics challenges

For Meng Tao, who specializes in sustainable energy infrastructure at Arizona State University, developing an efficient lifecycle for solar panels is a pressing issue. 

With the United States among the countries committed to weaning itself off of fossil fuels, solar panel installation looks set to increase and peak two decades from now. 

“Once it matures, then the annual installation and the decommissioning will be about the same,” he told AFP.  

“But for the next 20 years … at least for the next 10 years … we’ll just have more installations than retirements,” he said. 

The problem with recycling, he said, is not just that the value of recovered materials from panels can be relatively low, but also the logistics. 

With panels distributed to thousands of sometimes far-flung rooftops, it can cost a lot of money just to get them to a recycling center. 

And unlike some jurisdictions, the United States imposes the cost of removal and recycling on the end user, making it more attractive for households just to dump their old units at the local landfill. 

“There has to be some policy support” to plug the gap between what consumers will pay and the total lifecycle cost of the panels, Tao said. 

Growing market

For Saghei, as for any business leader, profitability is important. 

“You don’t see too many getting into the business because recycling has a cost. It’s not free. It’s labor intensive. It’s energy intensive,” he said. 

But he does see a way forward. 

Recovering materials from old solar panels that can be put back into new solar panels is — he is convinced — a winning proposition. 

“These are markets that are growing,” he said. 

“Right through this process we are able, once the industry scales to even larger figures, to put those raw commodities back into the supply chain,” he said. “What’s exciting is we’re at the forefront.” 
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The COVID-19 pandemic affected students around the world, disrupting their studies and weakening their social skills. But the pandemic did generate some positive outcomes, say college counselors and international students who are back to in-person learning in the United States. VOA’s Laurel Bowman explores. Camera: Adam Greenbaum and Saqib Ul Islam.
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WASHINGTON — Arnong Mungoei has farmed rice in Thailand’s Khon Kaen province for half a century.  

Working land some 500 kilometers northeast of Bangkok never made her rich, but it provided a dependable livelihood.  

But since February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, global geopolitical tensions and weather conditions elsewhere have upended the rice markets and by 2023, worldwide rice prices had exploded.  

Yet Arnong said she made less than she has in years. 

“The mills [that buy rice] don’t increase the price. What can I do? I bring rice there to sell. Whatever they offer us, we have to sell it. We won’t take the rice back because we had to pay for the truck,” said Arnong, 68.

In 2023, the prices of wheat and grains such as oats and corn declined 20% to 30% as stocks were replenished, according to an annual report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

But according to the FAO report, rice prices remained high throughout the year due to a persistent La Niña in March, followed by an El Niño anomaly in June and India imposing restrictions on non-basmati rice in July due after a late monsoon raised fears of a production shortfall.

India’s export control removed 9 million metric tons of grain from the international market and ignited global prices. India is responsible for 40% of global rice supplies after overtaking Thailand as the world’s largest rice exporter in 2011.

The countries most reliant on India’s rice include the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, and Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal in West Africa.

“Rice is tough, because there are just not a lot of other suppliers,” Joseph Glauber, a senior fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, told Bloomberg in November, adding that India’s export-control policy leaves “a big hole to fill.”

The World Bank predicted, “Rice prices will remain high into 2024, assuming India maintains its export restrictions. The outlook assumes a moderate-to-strong El Niño.”

The bank’s commodity report published on Oct. 30 said rice prices had reached their highest point in the third quarter of 2023 since the 2007-2008 food crises due to the Hamas-Israel conflict and El Niño.

While India’s controls benefit its own consumers, for the billions elsewhere in Asia and in Africa who depend on a stable rice supply, continued high prices could increase food insecurity. 

In Nigeria, the cost of rice increased 61% from September through November. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast the nation would import 2.1 million metric tons of rice in 2024. 

In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. imposed a price cap Sept. 5 after the cost of rice hit a 14-year high in September. Marcos, who blamed the soaring prices on “smugglers, hoarders and price manipulators,” removed the cap Oct. 13 as concerns over tight supply eased.

Alfie Pulumbarit, national coordinator at MASIPAG, a Philippine-based network of farmers, scientists and nongovernmental organizations working on farmer empowerment, told VOA Thai that rising food prices significantly affected the people in the island nation with “a lot of families now going hungry.”

Citing official information, Pulumbarit said that while it takes a person at least 79 pesos or about $1.50 dollars per day to survive in the Philippines, rice now costs $1.10 dollars per kilogram.

Continued Indian controls coupled with farmers “already leaving rice production in the Philippines” could lead to “a food crisis of epic proportions,” he said.

Climate is one of the key factors in analyses for rice production and price in the coming year.

The U.S. National Weather Service forecasts that the Northern Hemisphere, home to major rice producers like China, India, and Southeast Asia nations, will likely be affected by El Niño April through June, right around sowing season for rice across Asia.

An Asian Bank Development analysis recommends that the private sector should assume a bigger role in rice trading to help stabilize domestic production loss in importing countries. It also encourages policymakers to consider more sustainable rice production.

“Rice paddy is responsible for 12% of global methane emissions and 1.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In Asia, rice irrigation consumes more than half of freshwater resources,” according to the analysis.

As the COP 28 meeting at Dubai was concluding, the FAO suggested stakeholders should seek out climate-friendly cultivating techniques ranging from using fertilizers that can reduce methane emission to growing plants that create rhizobacteria, which may promote producing oxygen in soil.

Smanachan Buddhajak contributed to this report.
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Tokyo, Japan — Japan’s SLIM space probe entered the moon’s orbit Monday in a major step toward the country’s first successful lunar landing, expected next month.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is nicknamed the “Moon Sniper” because it is designed to land within 100 meters (328 feet) of a specific target on the lunar surface.

If successful, the touchdown would make Japan only the fifth country to have successfully landed a probe on the moon, after the United States, Russia, China and India.  

On Monday, SLIM “successfully entered the moon’s orbit at 04:51 p.m. Japan time” (0751 GMT), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a statement released Monday evening.  

“Its’ trajectory shift was achieved as originally planned, and there is nothing out of the ordinary about the probe’s conditions,” the agency said.

The lander’s descent toward the moon is expected to start around 12:00 a.m. Japan time on January 20, with its landing on the surface scheduled for 20 minutes later, JAXA said.  

The H-IIA rocket lifted off in September from the southern island of Tanegashima carrying the lander, after three postponements linked to bad weather.

JAXA said this month that the mission would be an “unprecedentedly high precision landing” on the moon.

The lander is equipped with a spherical probe that was developed by a toy company.

Slightly bigger than a tennis ball, it can change its shape to move on the lunar surface.

Compared to previous probes that landed “a few or 10-plus kilometers” away from targets, SLIM’s purported margin of error of under 100 meters suggests a level of accuracy once thought impossible, thanks to the culmination of a 20-year effort by researchers, according to JAXA.  

With the advance of technology, demand is growing to pinpoint targets like craters and rocks on the lunar surface, Shinichiro Sakai, JAXA’s SLIM project manager, told reporters this month.

“Gone are the days when merely exploring ‘somewhere on the moon’ was desired,” he said.  

Hopes are also high that SLIM’s exactitude will make sampling of the lunar permafrost easier, bringing scientists a step closer to uncovering the mystery around water resources on the moon, Sakai added.  

Japanese missions have failed twice — one public and one private.  

Last year, the country unsuccessfully sent a lunar probe named OMOTENASHI (outstanding moon exploration technologies demonstrated by nano semi-hard impactor) as part of the United States’ Artemis 1 mission.   

In April, Japanese startup ispace tried in vain to become the first private company to land on the moon, losing communication with its craft after what it described as a “hard landing.”
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new york — Look for flu and COVID-19 infections to ramp up in the coming weeks, U.S. health officials say, with increases fueled by holiday gatherings, too many unvaccinated people and a new version of the coronavirus that may be spreading more easily. 

High levels of flu-like illnesses were reported last week in 17 states — up from 14 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. 

“Folks are traveling a lot more this season. They want to see their families,” said the CDC’s Dr. Manisha Patel. “And all of that sort of adds to the mix” in the spread of viruses. 

Health officials are keeping an eye on a version of the ever-evolving coronavirus known as JN.1. The omicron variant was first detected in the U.S. in September and now accounts for an estimated 20% of cases. The CDC expects it to reach 50% in the next two weeks, Patel said. 

It may spread easier or be better at evading our immune systems, but there is no evidence that the strain causes more severe disease than other recent variants, health officials say. And current evidence indicates vaccines and antiviral medications work against it. 

As for flu, early signs suggest current vaccines are well-matched to the strain that is causing the most illnesses, and that strain usually doesn’t cause as many deaths and hospitalizations as some other versions. 

But the bad news is vaccinations are down this year, officials say. About 42% of U.S. adults had gotten flu shots by the first week of December, down from about 45% at the same time last year, according to the CDC. 

Americans have also been slow to get other vaccinations. Only about 18% have gotten an updated COVID-19 shot that became available in September. At nursing homes, about a third of residents are up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. 

And only 17% of adults 60 and older had received new shots against another respiratory virus. RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of mild cold-like symptoms, but it can be dangerous for infants and older people. 

The CDC last week took the unusual step of sending a health alert to U.S. doctors urging them to immunize their patients against the trio of viruses. 

The Carolinas are currently seeing the heaviest traffic for respiratory infections in emergency rooms, according to CDC data posted this week. 

It’s not as dire as some past winters, but some patients are still waiting days to get a hospital bed, noted Dr. Scott Curry, an infectious-disease specialist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. 

“We’ve barely been cold in South Carolina, and flu tends to hit us very hard when people actually get some cold weather to deal with,” he said. “We could get worse, very easily, in the next four to eight weeks.” 
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GENEVA — The World Health Organization says dengue, a mosquito-borne illness, is surging worldwide because of climate change, along with social, environmental and other factors, such as population growth and the globalization of travel, which facilitates the spread of the viral infection.

“Climate change has an impact on transmission because it increases rainfall, humidity, and temperatures,” said Diana Rojas Alvarez, World Health Organization team lead on arboviruses.

“So, these mosquitos are very sensitive to temperature, and temperature regulates how fast they grow and how fast they incubate the virus inside them,” she said.

Data released Friday by the WHO documents a 10-fold increase in the incidence of dengue over the past two decades, from 500,000 cases in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2019.

The U.N. health agency says ongoing transmission of the infection combined with an unexpected spike in dengue cases this year have “resulted in close to a historic high of over five million cases and more than 5,000 dengue-related deaths in over 80 countries and territories.”

The WHO warns the spike in dengue infections poses a substantial public health challenge because nearly half of the world’s population, about 4 billion people, is at risk of becoming infected.

Considering those factors, Rojas Alvarez said the “WHO assessed the risk of dengue as high globally, which requires a maximal attention and response from all the levels of the organization.”

Dengue is the most common viral infection transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes and is mostly found in urban areas within tropical and sub-tropical climates.

Most people who get dengue will not have symptoms. But for those who do, the most common symptoms are high fever, headache, body aches, nausea, and rash. Most people will recover in one to two weeks. Since there is no specific treatment for dengue, the WHO says early detection and access to proper medical care will lower the probability of severe illness and death.

So far this year, the WHO says nearly 80 percent of dengue cases, or 4.1 million, have been reported in the Americas, followed by Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific.

Rojas Alvarez notes the distribution of mosquitoes has changed in the last few years due to environmental factors, climate change and, in 2023, the El Nino phenomenon.

“This has resulted in increased detection of dengue in previously dengue-free countries such as France, Italy, and Spain,” she said, adding that the transmission of the virus through travel also is posing a greater risk to previously dengue-free populations.

“The ones who carry the virus around are humans because mosquitoes do not fly more than 200 meters around the house or where they hatch the eggs,” she said.

“It is also concerning that dengue outbreaks are occurring in fragile and conflict-affected countries of the Eastern Mediterranean WHO region, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen.

“These countries are facing simultaneously outbreaks of infectious diseases, mass population movements, poor water and sanitation infrastructure, and recurring natural disasters,” she said.

The WHO says Africa is among the top four regions most affected by arboviral diseases, including yellow fever, dengue, Rift Valley fever, and Zika. In 2023, nearly 172,000 cases of dengue and 753 deaths were reported in Africa, where “evidence of dengue circulation had been detected in local populations and among travelers returning from more than 30 African countries.”

Rojas Alvarez said there have been 15 countries in Africa with reported outbreaks of dengue, including Benin, Chad, Ethiopia, and Ghana, but “Burkina Faso was the most affected, with almost 150,000 cases.”

While Africa has experience battling mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, she said the mosquito that transmits dengue behaves differently, “so some methods used to control malaria are not effective in controlling dengue.”

The WHO official said increased rainfall and humidity caused by climate change has created better conditions for mosquitoes carrying the infection to breed and spread.

“This has led to mosquitoes becoming established in countries where they previously could not, such as in Europe, southern North America, and southern areas of Latin America such as Uruguay and Buenos Aires in Argentina,” she said.

In North America, the Aedes Aegypti mosquito is endemic to Puerto Rico. Rojas Alvarez said it also is present in some of the southern states of the United States, such as Texas and Florida.

“So, the risk is there. The issue with this virus is that most of the infections are asymptomatic. So, you can have silent transmission for a few weeks before you start seeing the first case,” she said, adding that it was important for states to take action to reduce mosquito density before it gets out of control and poses a big risk to the population.

The WHO advises nations and communities to be alert and prepared to detect transmission of dengue in tropical areas and in the southern hemisphere, where the summer and dengue seasons are about to begin.

It urges the general population to lower its risk of dengue by avoiding mosquito bites. It suggests using mosquito repellent and covering up during the day, especially two hours after sunrise and just before sunset when the mosquito is most active. 
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Christmas for many is a time of family togetherness and good cheer, but for older adults, it can too often be one of the year’s loneliest days. Age UK, a charity group that deals with ageism and the problems of this demographic, says people can take simple steps to help. Umberto Aguiar has more from London in this report narrated by Elizabeth Cherneff.
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PARIS — Bird flu is likely to spread further in the Antarctic region, causing immense damage to wildlife, according to experts on the highly contagious disease that has killed hundreds of millions of birds worldwide in recent years.

The spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, commonly called bird flu, to the remote southern region has raised concerns for isolated populations of species, including penguins and seals, that have never been exposed to the virus.

The H5 strain of the virus was detected in the region on October 8 in a brown skua on Bird Island, part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, according to a report by OFFLU, which gathers experts from the World Organization of Animal Health and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Around the same time, the virus was detected in fulmars and albatrosses in the nearby Falkland Islands.

“HPAI H5 virus is likely to spread further among Antarctic wildlife, potentially infecting the 48 species of birds and 26 species of marine mammals which inhabit this region,” OFFLU said in its report on Thursday.

“The negative impact of HPAI H5 on Antarctic wildlife could be immense, because their presence in dense colonies of up to thousands of pinnipeds [seals] and hundreds of thousands of birds facilitates virus transmission and may result in high mortality,” the report said.

Elephant seals in South Georgia could have been infected by migrating seals from South America, where there was a large die-off of the species, OFFLU said. Infected elephant seals could possibly transport the virus to neighboring islands and further south to the Antarctic Peninsula.

“If HPAI H5 virus completes the above-suggested stage of spread, further virus spread in the Antarctic region is likely given the many avian and mammalian species that probably are susceptible to infection,” the report said.

Bird flu in Antarctica particularly threatens the emperor penguin species, considered under near threat of extinction. If the virus was to enter an emperor penguin colony, it could spread to the whole population, OFFLU said.

It urged continued monitoring and surveillance of wildlife populations and biosafety measures to reduce the risk of human-mediated spread of the virus to new areas and to reduce the risk of human infection.

OFFLU uses the biogeographical definition of the Antarctic region, based on species and ecosystems distribution. It is wider than the Antarctic Treaty region, including all ice shelves.
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BLANTYRE, MALAWI — Malawi, which already is suffering from food shortages, this week banned the import of unmilled maize from Kenya and Tanzania over concerns that the spread of maize lethal necrosis disease could wipe out the staple food.

The ministry of agriculture announced the ban in a statement that said the disease has no treatment and can cause up to 100% yield loss. The statement said maize can be imported only after it is milled, either as flour or grit.

Henry Kamkwamba, an agriculture expert with the International Food Policy Research Institute, told VOA that if the disease were introduced into the country, it would be difficult to contain.

He used the banana bunchy top virus as an example of the potential danger.

“Think of how we lost all of our traditional bananas in the past and now Malawi is a net importer of bananas … due to our lax policies in terms of imports,” he said.

“There are these similar concerns with maize,” he said, with maize being the nation’s main food crop.

Kamkwamba predicted the ban would help Malawi prevent the disease from spreading.

Kenya and Tanzania have long been primary sources of maize for Malawi during periods of food shortage.

Malawi is facing shortages largely because Cyclone Freddy destroyed thousands of hectares of maize last March.

The World Food Program in Malawi and the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee estimate that 4.4 million people — around a quarter of the population — would face food shortages until March 2024.

Grace Mijiga Mhango, the president of the Grain Traders Association of Malawi, said that while she understands the severity of the impact of the maize disease, banning imports at a time of need would likely result in higher costs.

“If we really don’t have enough food, then we are creating another unnecessary maize [price] increase,” she said.

The next alternative for maize imports is South Africa, she said.

“South Africa is quite a distance,” she said, “and they don’t have enough. … It will be expensive.”

Malawi’s government said the ban will be temporary as it explores other preventive measures to combat the spread of maize lethal necrosis disease.
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