Cameroonian health authorities say at least 1,300 cholera cases have been detected, with nearly three dozen people dying as a result of the outbreak within the past two weeks. Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry says water shortages and poor hygiene have spread the bacterial disease throughout half the country.

Cameroon says the lives of thousands of its citizens are at risk. Manaouda Malachie, the state minister of public health, said five of the country’s 10 regions have been affected by an ongoing cholera outbreak in a press release published Wednesday.

The statement says Bakassi, a southwestern peninsula near the Nigerian border, Cameroon’s commercial hub and coastal city Douala, and Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, are the worst hit by the outbreak. Other locations affected are Buea,Tiko and Mutengene, southwestern commercial towns, as well as Maroua and Garoua on the northern border with Nigeria.

Kelvin Fosong, a community health worker, said he was sent from Buea to Mutengene this week to help civilians affected by the outbreak.

“Since the outbreak, we have engaged ourselves into community sensitization, most especially in the quarters where deaths were reported. We have been there visiting homes, disinfecting toilets, public taps and water points. We teach them (civilians) how to take care of their environment with the help of some doctors (health workers),” Fosong said, speaking from Mutengene.

Cameroon’s public health minister said 32 of the 1,300 people affected by the outbreak have died within two weeks, and added that the figures may be higher. The government reports that about 70% of the country’s 26 million people visit African traditional healers and go to hospitals only when their health conditions get worse. The government says it is difficult to gather statistics from African traditional healers in the country’s towns and villages.

Linda Esso, director of epidemics and pandemics at Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry, said after the first cases were reported, the government started telling people to go to the nearest hospitals if they experience watery diarrhea, vomiting or dehydration. She said civilians should follow basic hygiene practices such as washing their hands with soap, and using and cleaning latrines after defecation.

Esso warned against eating uncooked raw food and unwashed fruits or drinking water that has not been boiled. She said keeping latrines dirty increases the risk of cholera.

Mathias Ngund, the most senior government health official in Buea, an English-speaking southwestern town where 30 cholera cases have been reported with three deaths, said the lack of clean drinking water is exacerbating the spread of cholera in Buea. He said he has informed the government that the provision of water is an emergency need.

“We went to all the houses of suspected cases, we disinfected them and also we have had coordination meetings with the administrative authorities to respond to the outbreak,” Ngund said.

The central government in Yaounde said it will provide clean drinking water to arid towns and villages in Cameroon but did not say when. Authorities are encouraging civilians to boil water from wells and streams before drinking it.

Cameroon said a cholera outbreak in November claimed 13 lives, with several hundred people infected, as it prepared to host the African Football Cup of Nations, or AFCON. Cameroon hosted AFCON from January 9 to February 6. The government had promised to stop its spread before the continental football event that brought several thousand football fans, players and match officials to the country.

Source: VOA

Thirty-two people have died in an outbreak of cholera in Cameroon, the authorities said on Wednesday.

The water-borne disease was first detected in the Southwest and Centre regions in late October, and then spread to three other regions.

As of 1 January, there were 32 deaths out of 1 102 recorded cases, Health Minister Manaouda Malachie said in a statement.

Outbreaks of cholera, an acute form of diarrhoea that is treatable with antibiotics and hydration, occur periodically in Cameroon.

The country’s last epidemic was between January and August 2020, when 66 people died.

Cholera is caused by a germ that is typically transmitted by poor sanitation. People become infected when they swallow food or water carrying the bug.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates an annual global tally of between 1.3 and four million cases, leading to between 21 000 and 143 000 deaths.

Source: AFP

Cameroon has confirmed an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu in its West region, the government said.

The H5N1 diagnosis followed a significant number of bird deaths at a poultry farm in Kongso, in the area of Bamoungoum, said a statement by the regional governor dated on Sunday.

Culling is under way and a sanitary barrier will be erected around the farm. Epidemiological investigations will be done in all poultry farms and markets in the region, the statement said.

Source: Reuters

India’s official death toll from Covid-19 passed 500,000 on Friday, although many experts believe the real figure is likely much higher.

The daily update from the country’s federal health ministry showed the number of fatalities reaching 500,055, up 1,072 in the previous 24 hours.

Total infections stood at 41.9 million, according to the statistics, second only to the United States.

Case numbers have jumped in recent weeks due to the highly infectious Omicron strain but rates have slowed in recent days and the health ministry last week said there were indications of a plateau in virus cases in several parts of the country.

Experts said the Omicron wave would not cause many deaths or hospitalisations, but several states imposed restrictions on movement and have only now started easing them.

Authorities in the Delhi area that includes the capital on Friday announced high schools, colleges, restaurants and gyms would be allowed to open from next week.

After being shut for almost two years, first because of coronavirus and then again for pollution following a brief reopening, in-person classes for four- to 14-year-olds will restart on February 14, Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia tweeted.

India was hit by a devastating spike in cases last year due to the Delta variant that brought its health care system close to collapse.

Many analysts believe the country actually may have reached the 500,000-death mark last year itself.

The wave saw at least 200,000 deaths as hospitals ran out of oxygen and patients scrambled desperately to source medicines.

A study by a US research group last year suggested that anywhere between 3.4 million and 4.7 million people had died.

For months now, several states have been reconciling their death toll and adding “backlog” deaths as India’s Supreme Court ordered state authorities to provide compensation to families.

Kerala, Bihar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat are among those to have added thousands of old deaths to their existing tolls.

Last month, the Modi government asked states to stop mandatory testing of contacts of those who test positive, unless they had underlying health conditions.

But soon after the order the government told states to ramp up testing as numbers dropped. Booming sales of home coronavirus self-test kits have also fuelled fears of underreporting of cases across the country.

Source: AFP

Several Chinese cities went on high COVID-19 alert as the Lunar New Year holiday travel season started on Monday, requiring travellers to report their trips days before their arrival, as the Omicron variant reached more areas including Beijing.

Authorities have warned the highly contagious Omicron adds to the increased risk of COVID-19 transmission as hundreds of millions of people travel around China for the Lunar New Year on Feb. 1.

Cities such as Luoyang in central China and Jieyang in the south said on Sunday travellers need to report to communities, employers or hotels their trips three days ahead of arrival.

The southwestern city of Yulin said on Saturday those who want to enter should fill in an online form, including their health credentials and trip details, one day in advance.

Over the weekend, the capital Beijing and the southern technology hub Shenzhen each detected one domestically transmitted Omicron case.

The possibility that the Omicron case in Beijing was infected through imported goods can’t be ruled out, Pang Xinghuo, an official at the city’s disease control authority, said on Monday.

Li Ang, vice director at the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said a local hospital had admitted nine Omicron infections, with six still being treated. He did not say when the infections arrived or why they hadn’t been disclosed earlier.

The city of Meizhou in Guangdong province found one Omicron infection linked to an outbreak in Zhuhai, state television said on Monday.

So far, at least five provinces and municipalities reported local Omicron infections, while 14 provincial areas found the variant among travellers arriving from overseas.

Run-up to Winter Olympics

China is yet to show any solid sign of shifting its guideline of quickly containing any local infections, despite a high vaccination rate of 86.6%. The strategy has taken on extra urgency in the run-up to the Winter Olympics, to be staged in Beijing and neighbouring Hebei province starting Feb. 4.

Many local governments have already advised residents not to leave town unnecessarily for trips during the holiday, while dozens of international and domestic flights have been suspended.

China’s aviation regulator said on Monday it would suspend two flights from the United States over COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of cancelled flights this year from the country, where Omicron is spreading, to 76.

For Sunday, China reported 163 locally transmitted infections with confirmed symptoms,  official data showed on Monday, up from 65 a day earlier.

Sunday’s increase in infections was mainly driven by more cases in the cities of Tianjin and Anyang, where Omicron has been found in local clusters.

Tianjin and Anyang reported slightly more than 600 local symptomatic infections from the current outbreaks, smaller than many clusters overseas, but authorities there still have limited movement within the cities and trips to outside.

Source:  REUTERS

Burkina Faso captain Bertrand Traore has deplored as “a scandal” coronavirus testing procedures at the Africa Cup of Nations after up to five players and coach Kamou Malo tested positive in the run-up to Sunday’s opener against hosts Cameroon.

The Aston Villa forward told a press conference in Yaounde on Saturday: “It’s a scandal, we cannot be deprived of first team players 24 hours before the match.”

Assistant coach Firmin Sanou, standing in for Malo, said: “We have four or five Covid cases, mainly first team players, we’re not going to name names.”

“It calls everything into question, but we have confidence in the players who will replace them,” continued Sanou, who hit out at the organisation with two different medical teams arriving to test the team.

“Yesterday morning (Friday) a medical team showed up at our hotel for tests, when we tried to understand who had sent them, the CAF (African Football Confederation) clearly told us that they hadn’t sent them so we refused to do the tests,” said Sanou.

“Another team arrived at 10 p.m., apparently the CAF team, we carried out the tests which informed us of 4 to 5 cases of Covid.

“I say 4 or 5 because they say that our first player tested did not carry out the test … ” he continued.

The Burkinabè delegation are disputing the fact that the tests were not PCR tests, which must be carried out 48 hours before the match, and have requested a second opinion.

Traore said: “The authorities must review the organisation. We cannot accept this decision. We can redo tests of our positive players.”

Source: AFP

The seriousness of a stagnant COVID-19 variant identified in France in November was downplayed by global health officials, who said they were still watching it closely on Tuesday.

The variant, nicknamed IHU after the research hospital it was discovered in, “probably” originated in Cameroon, scientists said last week. It was identified in 12 patients in the Southern Alps around the same time the highly transmissible Omicron variant was surging in South Africa, officials said.

The variant “has been on our radar,” Abdi Mahamud, a WHO incident manager on COVID, said at a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. “That virus had a lot of chances to pick up.”

The news came as France saw its average daily caseload more than double in a week, with a record 271,686 COVID-19 cases recorded there Tuesday.

IHU’s patient zero had just returned from Africa when scientists at IHU Méditerranée Infection in Marseilles discovered he was infected with an atypical mutation of the virus. The vaccinated man “developed mild respiratory symptoms the day before diagnosis,” researchers wrote in their non-peer-reviewed article published in medRxiv.

Source: New York Post