Monthly Archives: May 2020

15, May 2020

Covid-19 brings out Biya regime’s ugly side, Opposition parties not allowed to participate in response ⁰

The message of national solidarity around the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have been lost in Cameroon. While several other governments are calling on its citizens to pull together and help one another, Cameroon’s ruling party is using the pandemic to settle scores and punish the opposition.

A man who received a protective mask and a bottle of hand sanitizer donated by “Survival Initiative”, a fundraising initiative launched by opposition leader Maurice Kamto, Bangoura,Cameroon, May 2020.EXPAND

On May 11, 6 volunteers from the “Survival Initiative,” a fundraising initiative launched by opposition leader Maurice Kamto to respond to the health emergency, were arrested while handing out protective masks and sanitizing gel for free to people in Yaoundé, the capital. The arrests would be laughable if they weren’t so serious. The volunteers face charges of rebellion and remain in detention. If found guilty, they could face up to 4 years in prison.

Earlier in May, the health minister rejected a donation by Kamto’s initiative of 16,000 protective and surgical masks and 950 Covid-19 screening tests, claiming the initiative had not been legally established.

On April 7, Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji told anyone fundraising to fight Covid-19 to stop and told citizens instead to make contributions to the “Special Fund of National Solidarity” created by Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya.

On April 9, Nji ordered accounts belonging to Kamto’s initiative to be closed and its money frozen, and later called for an investigation into the “Survival Initiative.” He also told communication companies to close mobile accounts opened to support the fund.

The arrest of the six volunteers shows the steps the government will take to crack down on any efforts by the opposition, fuelling political divisions when joint efforts are most crucial.

Health officials have confirmed 2,800 cases of Covid-19 and 136 deaths across Cameroon. On April 9, in an attempt to slow down the spread of the virus, the government made wearing face masks mandatory in public spaces. But masks are in short supply and expensive.

Distributing free masks to those who need them is not rebellion and it certainly should not land people in jail. Cameroonian authorities appear to be more concerned with defeating the opposition than protecting public health.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

15, May 2020

Football and the virus: Liverpool’s Klopp pokes fun at Neville over lockdown rants ⁰

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has joked that his biggest lesson from the coronavirus lockdown is just how outspoken former Manchester United defender Gary Neville can be.

In his role as a television pundit, Neville has vented on a range of issues related to the Premier League and the health crisis.

The former England international has criticised Premier League chiefs for being slow to give updates on their restart plans.

He also took issue with the government’s call for players to take wage cuts during the pandemic and let rip on a host of other subjects.

Klopp could not resist a good-natured jibe at Neville when asked what his lockdown experience had been like.

“I didn’t learn a lot in lockdown, other than Gary Neville has an opinion about absolutely everything. It is incredible,” Klopp told the BBC’s Football Focus programme.

Liverpool were two wins away from winning the English title for the first time in 30 years when the Premier League was postponed on March 13.

The league hopes to resume in mid-June and players are already returning to training while observing strict social-distancing rules.

Klopp has been in touch with Liverpool’s squad, but he admitted it had been hard to go so long without seeing them in person.

“I am quite proud how we as a society have dealt with it,” he said. “We are not perfect. We will always make mistakes but I think we have learned how connected we are to each other.

“I miss the boys the most because we created a group where all the people at Melwood (training ground) have a really good relationship and we became friends over the last four-and-a-half years.

“We saw each other with Zoom and other calls but it is still not the same. Going back to Melwood and doing the things we usually do is something I really miss.”

Source: AFP

15, May 2020

More Americans disapprove Trump’s handling of coronavirus ⁰

More Americans say they think President Donald Trump is doing a “bad job” handling the coronavirus pandemic and don’t trust him to provide accurate data about the outbreak, according to a new poll.

The CBS News poll found that 57 percent of respondents said they believe Trump is doing a “bad job” handling the public health crisis and 43 percent said the president is doing a “good job.”

Views of Trump’s handling of the outbreak are now 10 points lower than in March, the lowest rating he has received.

The poll also shows 62 percent Americans don’t trust Trump to provide accurate information about the coronavirus or what to do during the outbreak.

Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, receives similar numbers.

Trump worsening approval rating comes as the number of confirmed infections and deaths from COVID-19 mount.

The pandemic has infected over 1.4 million people in the United States, killed more than 85,000 and devastated the economy.

A whistleblower told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the United States could face “the darkest winter” of recent times if it does not improve its response to the pandemic.

Rick Bright says he was removed by the White House as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) for raising concerns about the government’s coronavirus preparedness.

BARDA is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services responsible for developing drugs to fight the coronavirus.

Trump, who has been pushing for the US economy to reopen quickly, dismissed Bright as a “disgruntled employee” on Twitter on Thursday morning before the hearing begun.

Source: Presstv

15, May 2020

Without wearing a mask, Trump tours Pennsylvania mask distribution center ⁰

Without wearing a face mask himself, President Donald Trump toured a mask distribution center in Pennsylvania on Thursday and announced plans to replenish the US strategic stockpile of medical equipment depleted by the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump, a Republican who is running for re-election in November, has resisted wearing a mask in public despite his administration’s guidance to Americans to wear them and new White House rules requiring that staff wear them at work.

The president toured the Owens & Minor Inc distribution center, which the White House said has sent millions of N95 masks, surgical gowns and gloves to hospitals and surgery centers across the United States. Company officials wore masks.

Trump visited a mask production facility in Arizona last week, when he also did not wear a face covering, though he said he tried some on backstage.

Pennsylvania is a political swing state wooed by both Republicans and Democrats in presidential elections. Though the Thursday event was arranged by the White House, it had campaign overtones, with music similar to what is played at Trump’s rallies and a pejorative reference by the president to his expected Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump accused the Obama administration of allowing the stockpile to be depleted. Trump has been in office for three years; the coronavirus outbreak started hitting the United States earlier this year.

Trump said his administration would seek to have three months’ worth of supplies on reserve rather than one to three weeks’ worth.

“I’m determined that America will be fully prepared for any of the future outbreaks, of which we hope there’s going to be none,” he said during remarks after his tour.

The president has previously sought to downplay the possibility of the coronavirus returning in the fall, though doctors have said it is very likely.

A senior administration official told reporters earlier on Thursday that the Trump administration was seeking to add 300 million N95 masks, the respiratory protective devices that are key to protecting medical workers fighting the deadly coronavirus, to the US stockpile by the fall.

The official said the administration hoped ultimately to replenish its strategic national stockpile, which had only 13 million N95s at the beginning of the outbreak, to 1 billion in total.

The administration is seeking to shore up medical supplies as part of a bid to prepare for future flare-ups of coronavirus cases, as states nationwide begin to reopen after lockdowns aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.

(Source: Reuters)

15, May 2020

WHO says coronavirus could infect over 200mn in Africa ⁰

The new coronavirus could kill 150,000 people in Africa in a year unless urgent action is taken, according to a WHO modelling study that says nearly a quarter of a billion people will be infected.

Authors of the research, published Friday in the journal BMJ Global Health, predicted a lower infection rate than in other parts of the world like Europe and the US, with fewer severe cases and deaths.

But while they said many African nations had been swift to adopt containment measures, they warned that health systems could still quickly become overwhelmed.

“Our model points to the scale of the problem for health systems if containment measures fail,” said the authors.

The study comes amid stark warnings that COVID-19 threatens a health emergency in developing nations where fragile health systems are already struggling with an array of other chronic diseases.

Experts at the World Health Organization’s Africa office modelled likely rates of exposure to the virus and infection in the 47 countries under its regional remit, which excludes Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia.

Some 231 million people, or 22 percent (with a range of 16 to 26 percent) of the one billion people in the region were expected to be infected in the 12 month period — most of them showing few or no symptoms.

But an estimated 4.6 million people would need to be admitted to hospital, while 140,000 would have severe COVID-19 infection and 89,000 would be critically ill.

That would lead to some 150,000 deaths (between 83,000 and 190,000) the study suggested.

The modelling estimates what would happen for each country over the period of a year from the beginning of widespread and sustained community transmission.

Researchers warned that surging hospital admissions for COVID-19 would divert already limited resources to tackle major health issues in the region, such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and malnutrition, worsening the impact of coronavirus.

“The region will have fewer deaths, but occurring more in relatively younger age groups, amongst people previously considered healthy –- due to undiagnosed non-communicable diseases,” the report said, adding that these trends were already emerging.

The researchers said they expect the virus would likely circulate within the region for longer than other countries, possibly for several years.

Transmission was estimated to be greatest in small nations, with Mauritius found to have the highest risk of exposure. Of the region’s large countries, South Africa, Cameroon and Algeria were also in the top ten for exposure risk.

The authors calculated this risk by looking at each country’s “gathering factor” (including family size and population density), people’s likely ease of movement, sanitation and hygiene practices.

They also included weather. It is not known if warmer temperatures slow down the spread of COVID-19, though some research has suggested it has that effect on other coronaviruses.

Researchers factored in each country’s measures to control the spread of the virus, including physical distancing.

They also looked at health risk factors — proportion of the population over 65, HIV prevalence (as a proxy for chronic communicable conditions) and diabetes (as a proxy for non-communicable chronic illness).

They called for countries to rapidly boost healthcare capacity, particularly in primary hospitals.

This month the United Nations said the number of deaths from AIDS-related illnesses in sub-Saharan Africa could double if the provision of healthcare to HIV sufferers is disrupted during the coronavirus crisis.

(Source: AFP)

15, May 2020

Readout of Swiss President’s phone call with Paul Biya ⁰

The President of the Swiss Confederation, Mrs Simonetta Sommaruga has said on her Twitter account that she had a telephone conversation with the French Cameroun dictator Paul Biya on the 14^th of May 2020 on the crisis in Southern Cameroons and the coronavirus pandemic.

She reiterated to the 88 year-old leader, her country’s willingness to accompany Cameroon in the search for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

“Happy to have had an exchange of views today with President @PR_Paul_BIYA on health and humanitarian cooperation in Cameroon and on Switzerland’s commitment to finding solutions in the North-West and South-West,” the Swiss official tweeted.

Correspondingly, the Swiss government reportedly tried in the past to initiate negotiations between the Cameroonian government and the English-speaking separatists. But the initiative has met with a stone wall from both sides, who are sticking to their positions.

According to NGOs, the war in Southern Cameroons has caused at least 3,000 deaths and more than 700,000 displaced persons and refugees.

By Chi Prudence Asong

14, May 2020

Biya should handover to DAVID ABOUEM À TCHOYI now ⁰

Southern Cameroonians are no longer attached to their television sets and radios relaying information from the French Cameroun capital, Yaoundé. They are now on their computers and mobile phones, avidly following the war against French Cameroun occupation and the politics going on in the diaspora. Ambazonians are now fully aware that they made a costly mistake to have rejected the union with Nigeria.

Southern Cameroonians can no longer cope in a French teleguided political system where, a sitting President can never be voted out of office, where the French ambassador is the second most important personality in the country and where even football decisions are made in Paris.

Even French Camerounians are fed up with their leadership but they are not willing to do anything about it. Since 1990, voter turnout in the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon has been very low—less than ten per cent and those who show up often chose the opposition candidates.

In the last election that the leading opposition candidate Prof Maurice Kamto reportedly won, the whole process was disappointingly inefficient, as if the nation hadn’t realized it would actually be having an election that year. Nothing that was put in place by ELECAM worked! The electoral register didn’t work, and a special registration system that voters had to go through before casting ballots resulted in government officials dishing out money to get votes.

French support for Francophone dictators in French Cameroun, Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, Togo, Chad and now Equatorial Guinea is indeed making a mockery of education and democracy. No issue can push a Francophone head of state out of office. Not the millions of dollars of oil revenue disappearing; not broken promises to provide electricity and create jobs; not a complete mishandling of the crisis in Southern Cameroons or the Boko Haram insurgency.

Ever since he took office in 1982, Biya’s regime has overseen human-rights abuses and a strangling of personal freedoms. Biya has never distanced himself from the sway of men like Amadou Ali, Laurent Esso and the late Martin Belinga!! Biya has never appointed competent technocrats, and he has never prevented government officials from enriching themselves on the job. His Special Criminal Court has targeted only regime barons eyeing his job.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a wakeup call for all in Francophone Africa!! Macron has successfully forced all French surrogates including Biya to allow French businesses to operate while France is maintaining strike European Union directives in the lockdown process.

Change is needed in French Cameroun. Change is needed in Etoudi. Change is needed in Yaoundé. Fallen oil prices, the war in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia and a floundering FCFA currency is making life harder for both French and Southern Cameroonians. But Yaoundé needs a decent man to run its affairs!! Not a man whose wife’s friends are Koffi Olomide and Wizkid but a man with integrity- DAVID ABOUEM À TCHOYI

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

14, May 2020

Ambazonia Crisis and the virus: PWD of Bamenda declared Cameroon league champions ⁰

Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot) has terminated its domestic championships over the novel coronavirus pandemic, effectively declaring PWD of Bamenda champions of Elite One league.

Fecafoot Tuesday announced that it was impossible to complete the 2019/20 football season due to Covid-19 virus which had infected 2,689 people as at Wednesday.

Cameroon national government suspended soccer and other sports-related activities in March, following the outbreak of the virus grinding the 18-team top tier league to a halt.

The top-tier league was preparing for Round 29 at the time and Fecafoot has now confirmed that the current standing will be considered final. PWD of Bamenda – who will represent Cameroon in the Caf Champions League – had 47 points by Round 28, one ahead of second-placed Coton Sports who will represent the country in the Confederations Cup.

The decision also crowned, Astres of Douala, Louves MINPROFF of Yaounde as champions of Elite Two league and the women’s championships respectively.

Source: Daily Nation

14, May 2020

Yaounde: Traditional Healers See Rush for Herbal Medicines to Treat COVID-19 ⁰

Cameroon’s traditional healers say they are being overwhelmed by the number of people seeking herbal medicine for prevention or treatment of the coronavirus.  The rush for traditional healing comes as the central African nation confirms more than 2,500 cases of COVID-19 and 121 deaths.  But medical doctors caution the use of herbal medicine for the coronavirus.

Traditional healer Dewah, who only uses a first name, says his chain of herbal medicine clinics across Cameroon have been flooded with patients since the March outbreak of the coronavirus.

He spoke via a messaging application from the southwestern town of Kumba.

Dewah said in the last two months he has received at least 800 people from Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Chad who say they are rushing for African herbal medicine because they have been told there is no modern cure for COVID-19.

The demand for herbal medicine is so high, said Dewah, that he could not treat some patients because he ran short of the potions made from plants he harvests from the forest.

Despite a lack of scientific evidence, he claims the potions can treat all the symptoms of COVID-19 and even save the infected from death.

Dianne Sop, a traditional healer in Yaounde, said in the last month she too has received about 200 patients seeking treatment for the coronavirus.

Sop said on Tuesday morning alone she received 10 patients but had to send four away because she is still waiting for more herbal medicines.

Medical researchers, doctors, and the Cameroon government have urged patients not to rely on traditional medicine for COVID-19 and to instead seek treatment at hospitals.

Douala city pharmacist Merilyne Peyou notes many Cameroonians do not live near hospitals but have easy access to traditional medicine.

She said many drugs sold in hospitals and pharmacies in Africa originate from herbs and tree leaves that were effectively used to treat Africans before the arrival of modern medicine. The only challenges of African herbal medicine, said Peyou, are that it is difficult to preserve, may become toxic, and healers don’t always know what dosage to prescribe.

Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health released a statement Thursday warning of quacks claiming they can treat COVID-19 to financially exploit people suffering from or worried about the virus.

Gidiun Peliegho, a researcher on African traditional medicine, said authorities should work to identify which herbs can treat COVID-19 and help to develop a cure.

“We need both financial and moral assistance. This is not the time for us to keep on doubting what African traditional medicine can do. What interests us now the most is getting to rescue the world population that is suffering.”

The World Health Organization notes the use of products to treat COVID-19 that have not been robustly investigated can put people in danger.

In a May 4 statement, the WHO said untested and unproven medicines give a false sense of security and distract from proven measures such as hand washing and physical distancing.

Source: VOA

13, May 2020

French Cameroonians ‘defy’ virus: Douala residents flout measures ⁰

While most countries across the continent and the world at large strictly impose and enforce COVID-19 lockdown measures, in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, the reverse is the case.

Life before the virus seems to continue unchanged except for the closure of borders and schools, football parks and children’s playgrounds are open to games with no restrictions.

The markets also remain chocked with only few respecting social distancing measures. The imposed wearing of masks also seems to be openly flouted. A situation some find worrying.

Claude Epoh, a construction engineer, bemoans the state of affairs: “It’s terrible, look, look, it’s a mess all over the place and people have become used to this, they are now acclimatised to it and it doesn’t bother them at all.

“It’s their daily routine now. Look at the bars, people are kissing, talking mouth to mouth with saliva coming out of their mouths, it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”

But for others, it is time for the government to enforce virus prevention measures more strictly. One such person is Samuel Ebang, a computer scientist who said it was scandalous what was currently pertaining.

“We are all outraged by this laxity of the population. But what are we going to do about it? This is a decision that comes from the government. It is up to them to find solutions to make the people of Cameroon safe.”

The authorities unveiled a newly constructed unit, to be used as a confinement center for COVID-19 patients.

The country remains Central Africa’s most impacted with 2,689 cases as of May 13, the death toll was at 125 with 1,524 recoveries according to John Hopkins University tallies.

Source: Africa News