The economic effect of the Ebola virus is starting to be seen as crops rot in the fields, mines are abandoned and goods cannot get to market, AFP reports.

The four countries affected -- Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Liberia -- are of the poorest in the world, and fear and quarantines associated with the disease's quick spread are hampering any long-term economic growth.

"It is a total catastrophe. We are losing lots of money," said Alhaji Bamogo, who sells clothes in the market in the Liberian capital Monrovia, according to AFP.

Companies are keeping their employees at home for fear of a spread -- which is possible by coming in contact with bodily fluids like sweat, a high likelihood in the warm, resource-rich West African countries.

ArcelorMittal, a steel company, said contractors at iron ore works in Liberia had suspended operations and were pulling out staff, according to AFP.

Liberia has been the hardest hit with more than 600 lives claimed within the country of the 1,427 total dead in all four countries.

Nigeria, the most recently affected country, reported five deaths, but the number of cases is increasing.

It is the continent's top oil producer and most populous country, and experts say the impact for the regional economy could be dire.

"The Ebola epidemic is not just a public health crisis but an economic crisis ... affecting many sectors of activity," the president of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, said this month, according to AFP. "Everything depends on whether this stays limited or whether the epidemic continues to spread in a prolonged way. The heads of foreign businesses on the ground are very concerned."

In addition, the image of a poor and dangerous region is going to continue to be perpetuated in the world, and erase any progress on the potential and resources in the countries, he told AFP.