On Saturday the 4th of April, Cameroon authorities announced plans to transform the country’s football stadium and some newly constructed social housing apartments into an accommodation center, due to the growing number of infected coronavirus ( COVID-19) patients.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Cameroon rose to 655, as it recorded nine deaths and 17 recoveries. Authorities were able to discover the growing number of identified COVID-19 cases, due to the revised government strategy which includes mass generalised testing.
A mass testing campaign began in the country’s economic hub, Douala, with community health workers going round neighbourhoods to find potential positive cases, thereby leading to the discovery
This prompted the Minister of Public Health Dr Manaouda Malachie and the Secretary General of the Cameroon Presidency, Mr Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, in inspecting the stadium and providing accommodation for infected persons.
Malachie said that the Yaounde military stadium will now serve as one of the large capacity centres in the capital expected to increase the country’s management capacity to more than 3,000 beds. He went further to say that there is a large order for respiratory assistance equipment through the central procurement office of the United Nations Development Programme.
More so, in a bid to curb the spread of the virus, the government removed about 3,000 homeless children from the streets by reuniting them with their families while others receive job training, including orphans and asylum-seekers from the neighboring Central African Republic.
On Monday morning, Henri Nyambi Dikosso, director of national solidarity at Cameroon Ministry of Social Affairs is leading a group of social workers and hospital staff removing hundreds of children from streets in the capital Yaoundé and screening them for the virus. Health officials are also making sure that street corners where the children lived are disinfected and the children are washed to stop the risk of infections.
Similarly, a Cameroonian mayor city says wearing a mask will be mandatory to slow the spread of the virus. Roger Mbassa Ndine, mayor of the coastal city of Douala, made the announcement Monday as crews began fanning out across the city Monday to pass out washable masks, in a new awareness campaign that will take them to other boroughs in the coming days.
In light of this, rebels groups in Cameroon called for ceasefires to help concentrate efforts to fight coronavirus. Although the country’s healthcare system is faulty, the government and its people are working hand in hand to fight the virus by implementing safety measures to tackle COVID-19.
As at Saturday, Cameroon was the fifth on the continent with the highest number of confirmed cases after South Africa, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco.
