Survey shows almost half of SA households go without food due to COVID-19

An Ipsos survey has found that almost half of SA households have gone without food due to COVID-19, raising fears that millions of malnourished South Africans may suffer severe illness if the third wave of COVID-19 infections hits SA because of their weaker immune systems.

“What was very interesting to see what the outcome was that of our top 3 already societal issues and economic issues, provinces which are the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal as well as North West came out the highest on all those indices.

So, for example, in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West the impact on the loss of income came up to above 60% and the suffering of stress and other illnesses came up to also above 60% as well as basically the hunger scourge which has been. I mean they were all recorded under emergency and they were going into a crisis and all those figures go up from between 51% to 58%,” says Interim CEO at Operation Hunger, Sandy Bukula.

Bukula elaborates on the survey findings in the video below:

Population groups

Ipsos survey shows that at the time of fieldwork, more than 40% of South Africans of all age groups were affected by hunger.  “All population groups were affected, with about half of Indian and Black people suffering from hunger. This is also true for more than four in ten Coloured people and almost three in ten White people in South Africa.”

Aid workers have expressed concerns about the worsening impact of the COVID 19 pandemic in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the North West. This comes amid a rising number of infections in the country.

On Friday night, South Africa recorded yet another national increase of over a 1 000 coronavirus cases. The health department reported that 1 637 people tested positive for the virus in the latest reporting period.

KwaZulu-Natal has by far the highest number of active coronavirus cases at over 5 000.