Virus Leads to Shortages in Zaire’s Capital : Africa: Prices rise as roadblocks hinder food shipments into Kinshasa. Thousands are stranded along rural highways.

Rising prices and fear of shortages are making life difficult for residents of Zaire’s capital after measures to keep out the Ebola virus cut the flow of food to the city.

At Gambela Market in Kinshasa’s slum district of Matonge on Friday, traders said a blockade of southwestern breadbasket Bandundu province, where all 124 of Zaire’s Ebola cases have been reported, was pushing up prices.

But with the death toll at 89, Prime Minister Leon Kengo wa Dondo said the risk of the virus attacking the sprawling capital through tainted food meant authorities had no choice.

The virus, spread through contact with blood and other body fluids, kills up to 90% of victims by inducing uncontrollable bleeding.

The World Health Organization said Friday that 124 Ebola cases had been identified and 89 people had died. Thursday’s toll was 79 dead out of 114 cases.

The outbreak is so far confined to Bandundu province, which produces up to half of the capital’s food. Most cases are in the town of Kikwit, 370 miles east of the capital.

Government officials later said that the quarantine will be relaxed to cover only Kikwit. People from elsewhere in Bandundu province will be allowed to travel and enter Kinshasa province.

“We are following the advice of medical experts who confirm that a broader quarantine is unnecessary,” Health Minister Lonyangela Bopenda Bo Nkuma said.

But thousands of people trying to leave the area were still trapped behind roadblocks. Soldiers refused to let them pass, and there was little water, food or shelter, increasing the risk of an outbreak of other diseases.

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People stranded at roadblocks will be examined and “those who show no symptoms of any infectious diseases will be allowed to continue their journey,” WHO spokesman Philippe Stroot said in Geneva.

However, it was unclear how long it would take for all of the travelers to be checked or whether authorities in the field even had the capacity to conduct the examinations.

Meanwhile, the European Union has banned the importing of monkeys from Zaire in a bid to stop the spread of the Ebola virus, a European Commission spokesman said Friday.

The spokesman said monkeys were imported mainly into Germany, France and Britain for laboratory testing and that the ban will be reviewed at the end of July.