COVID-19, Food Insecurity and Health in Liberia

Background: This paper highlights empirical evidence on how COVID-19 has caused havoc for food security and health in Liberia. With the alarming rise in poverty, low agricultural production and poor health among Liberians, the presence of COVID-19 further intensified the magnitude of difficulty in resolving these societal problems. COVID-19 has created a scene of chaos for poor families; which have to keep struggling through it to live healthy and have equal access to food items.

Methods: A literature search was conducted using 5 electronic databases: PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cross Ref, Google Scholar and Google Search Engine. The inclusion criteria included: research that focused on COVID-19 and food security; peer-reviewed academic journals published in English in the last 5 years period; open access articles with accessible abstracts and full text; and commentaries/discussion papers.

Results: In spite of the efforts applied by the Government of Liberia in minimizing COVID-19 impacts on food insecurity and health, citizens still feel the huge effect of food insecurity and poor health due to high unemployment rate and low purchasing power.

Conclusion: COVID-19 has created unfavorable food insecurity situations and adverse effects on quality health and wellbeing of citizens. Food security and quality health are of interest now due to the fact that most Liberians depend on food items to survive and live healthy lives. And if proper care is not taken to reverse the unwanted course of food insecurity, thousands of Liberians would suffer from starvation, malnutrition and untimely death, even after coronavirus has left mother earth.