Sierra Leone’s National Minerals Agency (NMA) recently put out a statement indicating the kind of devastation that Ebola has wrought on the gold and diamond industries of the country.

The statement declared that gold exports decreased from 11,751 gms  in January to 3,900 gms in June and July with revenues plunging from US$ 433,000 (380,000 euros) to US$ 132,000.  Diamond exports are said to have dropped from a high of 64.5 thousand carats in April to 35.6 thousand carats in July.

On the whole, gold exports have plunged three-fold and diamond exports nearly halved in the first half of 2015.

"The whopping 297 percent drop in gold export is not unexpected given that the deadly Ebola virus was raging through the countryside by then driving the workforce from the mining fields and mine owners from the country," the NMA statement said.

Agency reports further said that the country had barely begun recovering from years of civil war and political strife, when the Ebola virus struck. The economy which grew by 11.3 percent in 2013, was down to a four per cent growth in 2014 due to the impact of Ebola and, according to the World Bank, it is expected to go into recession, contracting by two per cent this year.

The reports added that the virus has  devastated the mining, agriculture and tourism industries in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. The World Health Organisation estimates that these three countries account for more than 99 per cent of some 11,300 people killed by the disease since late 2013.