26, June 2020
Cameroon’s Poor Benefit, While Food Traders Suffer from Pandemic Closures 0
Cameroon says the temporary closure of most restaurants and border trade during the COVID-19 pandemic has dropped food prices by up to 70 percent. While food sellers are suffering the lost income, cheaper prices have helped some of Cameroon’s poorest to cope during the economic disruption.
After the COVID-19 pandemic forced restaurants to close in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, a new way of business emerged to sell the surplus of cheap food.
Trucks that used to deliver large quantities of food to the city’s eateries and hotels now go from street to street, selling fruit, vegetables, and chicken to the general public.
But food distributors like Christoph Nanze say the pandemic is destroying their business.
He says his wholesale buyers have dried up with restaurant closures and the banning of large gatherings and border trade.
Nanze says they are suffering because vegetable, meat and chicken sellers no longer have access to markets in Nigeria, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Since the neighboring countries sealed their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19, he says, food prices have decreased sharply. Nanze says the price of a 20-liter bucket of fresh tomatoes has dropped from $15 to only $4, while the price of a chicken that weighs 1.5 to 2 kilograms has fallen from $10 to about $3 to $4.
But in poor neighborhoods, where day laborers and laid off workers have been struggling during the pandemic, the cheap food is a blessing.
Among the buyers is 39-year-old unemployed single mother of two, Amina Awah. She says it is the first time in her life that she can afford to buy a few meals of meat per week for her children.
She says she is very happy that food is now very cheap and poor Cameroonians like her can add chicken to their diet. Awah says she does not like seeing people infected and dying from COVID-19 but, she wishes for prices to remain low so that the poor can also eat well.
But as the poor like Awah express joy, Cameroon’s farmers trade unions have called on the government to assist them.
The Cameroon Poultry Trade Union’s Joseph Tchomb says the fall in food prices means members are unable to repay their loans.
He says farmers are also discouraged from producing and, if no government assistance comes soon, Cameroon may face a food shortage.
Tchomb says the COVID-19 crisis has exposed Cameroon’s fragile economy. If the government does not give financial assistance to farmers and food sellers, he says, their businesses will crumble. Tchomb says banks that gave out loans to traders should renegotiate the terms because so many people cannot afford to pay them back.
Cameroon’s Minister of Finance Louis Paul Motaze says the government is preparing a rescue plan for farmers. He says the government plans to give farmers tax breaks and subsidies to ensure production.
Motaze says the government and Cameroon’s President Paul Biya are very much aware of the difficulties that traders are going through. He says they are doing everything possible to assist them. Although the government is already losing close to $2 billion in revenue due to COVID-19, says Motaze, Biya has removed taxes for food stuffs.
Motaze says the government has vowed not to allow the possibility of any food shortages.
Source: VOA
26, June 2020
Hanoian returning from Cameroon is latest Covid-19 patient 0
A Hanoian returning from Cameroon has tested Covid-19 positive, raising the nation’s active cases to 23, the Health Ministry confirmed Friday.
“Patient 353,” 31, is a resident of Hanoi’s Thach That District. He flew in from Cameroon, transiting in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Malaysia before arriving June 25 in Ho Chi Minh City on Vietnam Airlines flight VN9674.
He was quarantined upon arrival at the city’s District 7 Hospital and moved to the Cu Chi field hospital in the eponymous district after he tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
On Friday afternoon, one more patient was announced Covid-19 free at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi.
This patient, a Vietnamese man repatriated from Russia on May 13, was admitted to the hospital on May 17. He has tested negative for the virus twice and is now in stable condition. He will remain in the hospital for medical monitoring for another 14 days.
With the latest updates, Vietnam has 23 active cases after the recovery of 330 patients. Vietnam has also gone 71 days without community transmission of the Covid-19 virus.
The nation’s most critical patient, a British pilot, has made great progress after being comatose for more than two months, and doctors are preparing to discharge him from HCMC’s Cho Ray Hospital, where he has been treated for other serious health issues after recovering from Covid-19 more than a month ago.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected over 210 countries and territories and around 449,000 deaths have been reported so far.
Source: e.vnexpress.net