Although many believe that Ebola is a purely medical problem for the world, it has been proven that it is causing many issues for businesses as well. As Ariella mentioned, many airlines have stopped their flights to areas in West Africa which is a definite loss of revenue for the company. Also, a foreign company that does mining work in Sierra Leone saw its shares plunge by 19% partially because of the impact of the crisis on forecasts.

However, Ebola is having an even greater effect on small businesses located in Africa. For example, in Sierra Leone, a farmer and his family were quarantined after one of his friends died of the disease. The farmer asked his workers to continue going to the farm but they refused, claiming they didn’t want to accept money from his hands for fear of Ebola. Now his crops are rotting, along with countless other rice, cocoa and cassava fields that make up nearly half of Sierra Leone’s domestic production.

Other nearby countries have encountered very similar problems. As you can imagine, this has an enormous negative impact on the economies of these countries. Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea already have fragile economies; this crisis only makes them more unstable. Although Ebola may just be a disease, there evidence to argue that its a significant macroeconomic issue that has a huge impact on businesses in the West Africa area as well as internationally.

Works Cited

Mark, Monica. “Ebola Epidemic Takes Toll on Business in Quarantine Zones and across Africa.” Theguardian. The Guardian, 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/ebola-epidemic-business-impact-africa>.