Locusts, COVID-19, flooding pose ‘triple threat’ in Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda — Locusts, COVID-19 and deadly flooding pose a “triple threat” to millions of people across East Africa, officials warned Thursday, while the World Bank announced a $500 million program for countries affected by the historic desert locust swarms.

A new and larger generation of the voracious insects, numbering in the billions, is on the move in East Africa, where some countries haven’t seen such an outbreak in 70 years. Climate change is in part to blame.

The added threat of COVID19 imperils a region that already was home to about 20% of the world’s population of food-insecure people, including millions in South Sudan and Somalia.

Yemen in the nearby Arabian Peninsula is also threatened, and United Nations officials warn that if locusts are not brought under control there, the conflict-hit country will remain a reservoir for further infestations in the region.

Lockdowns imposed for the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed efforts to combat the locusts, especially imports of the pesticides needed for aerial spraying that is called the only effective control.

“We’re not in a plague, but if there are good rains in the summer and unsuccessful control operations, we could be in a plague by the end of this year,” said Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

He later told a U.N. briefing in New York that “the locust invasion is most serious now in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia” and is also “very serious in southern Iran and in parts of Pakistan.”