Cameroon Minister of Public Health, Manaouda Malachie on Thursday said Cholera has spread to eight of Cameroon’s 10 regions including the Center region, killing 272 people since October 2021.

Manaouda told a press briefing in the capital city of Yaounde that as of Oct. 20, 12,952 people were known to have been infected.

Efforts were underway to stop the disease from spreading but people needed to observe basic hygienic rules and go for treatment immediately if they noticed symptoms, the minister stressed.

On Wednesday, health officials in Southwest where the highest number of deaths and cases had been recorded, began vaccinating children in schools against cholera as part of nationwide measures to curb the disease.

Officials blamed poor sanitation and hygiene conditions for the spread of the epidemic.

Cholera is a highly virulent disease characterised in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhoea that can lead to death by severe dehydration.

Source: Xinhuanet

Officials in Cameroon say the number of mental health patients in the country has more than doubled in the past year, as the country deals with a separatist crisis in its western regions and Boko Haram clashes in the north.

Fonbe Hedwick is the director of the Vine Mental Health Center, in Bameda, capital of Cameroon’s volatile Northwest region.

He says his center was chosen for World Mental Health Day activities in Bamenda because the number of psychiatric patients at the center increased from less than 20 in 2021 to over 100 in October 2022.

“We are receiving those who have gone through traumas, and they are sad, many who complain of sleeplessness, some who cannot be able to control themselves, they are so restless, so agitated. Some with severe anger issues. They present emotional and behavioral tendencies which are uncontrollable,” said Fonbe.

Fonbe said many families lack the resources to care for psychiatric patients at home and either abandon the patients at the center or put them on the streets.

Rebecca Nkwate is the highest government official in charge of mental patients in the Northwest region. She says the number of psychiatric patients seeking help in the region has increased from less than 2,500 to over 6,000 within the past year.

“Some of them come here already abused, so we listen to their story to increase their morale and in the course of looking for solutions, it may require that we go for home visits,” said Nkwate. “We help them at the level of the police and we work with those that go to the hospital when it comes to trauma management. We make sure that they enjoy the same human rights like other people.”

Overall, Cameroon says the number of mental patients in the central African state has more than doubled from about 10,000 to 23,000 in the past 12 months.

The government says with the separatist crisis in western regions and Boko Haram terrorism on the northern border decreasing, humanitarian workers are better able to find and assist patients abandoned in villages where fighting was intensive.

Laure Mengueme is the director of mental health at Cameroon’s Ministry of Health. She says many people lost family members in the conflicts or experienced acts of abuse, violence and trauma, triggering mental health crises.

She urges civilians to seek medical help instead of taking psychiatric patients to traditional healers or pastors who claim they have miracle solutions to mental health problems.

She says a majority of the mental patients government workers are assisting to recover their health are nervous, aggressive, irritated and violent. She simply says doctors and therapists should exercise more patience with psychiatric patients when the patients become violent. She says the country counts very much on doctors and therapists to reduce the growing number of mental patients.

The World Health Organization reports that growing social and economic inequalities, protracted conflicts, violence and public health emergencies continue to take a toll on mental health, in Cameroon and worldwide.

The U.N. says a staggering 84 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced in 2021 leading to an increase in the number of people in need of mental health care.

The 2022 World Mental Health Day theme is “Make mental health and well-being for all a global priority.”

Source: VOA

Separatists in Cameroon have abducted five hospital staffers in the western town of Kumbo. The rebels say they were retaliating after Cameroon’s military entered the hospital and arrested or killed some of their fighters. Hospital workers tell VOA both military troops and rebels abused them.

Cameroon’s Bui Unity Warriors separatists say they abducted five health workers from Banso Baptist Hospital, BBH, Sunday. Bui is an administrative unit in Cameroon’s English speaking Northwest region.

In videos circulating on social media, including WhatsApp and Facebook, the separatists say hospital workers were abducted in retaliation after the military entered the hospital, killing one fighter and arresting three other fighters.

The fighters were hospital patients who had been wounded in battles with the military last week.

In another video circulating online, fighters claiming to be members of the Bui Unity Warriors present a man they say collaborated with government troops, who attacked fighters inside BBH.

The Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon identifies the man as Shiyntum Sergius, a priest at the parish in Vekovi, an English-speaking village in Bui, who had also been abducted.

The Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon, The Cameroon Baptist Convention that owns BBH, and the Presbyterian Church all confirm that troops attacked BBH, killed a fighter and arrested three other fighters. The churches say in retaliation, armed separatists abducted five medical staff members from the hospital and the priest, who is accused of collaborating with the rebels.

Joseph Sahfe is a patient who says other patients are scared that the hospital may stop rendering services to the sick. He spoke via the messaging app WhatsApp from the town of Kumbo, where BBH is located.

“What will become of the patients who depend on this lone institution for survival? To the best of my knowledge, a hospital treats patients without inquiring who you are,” said Sahfe. “It is a neutral ground in the midst of a crisis like the one we are experiencing. Where will the patients go if she [Baptist Hospital] has to close her doors as Doctors Without Borders did?”

In a release Monday, the hospital dismissed rumors that disgruntled staff are planning to stop working. The hospital management said it will continue saving lives despite the challenges.

The military says its troops organized raids on separatist camps in Bui last week and killed at least 7 fighters, including two self-proclaimed generals. The military said troops were searching for wounded fighters hiding in the community but did not comment on if government troops invaded the hospital.

Nick Ngwanyam is a member of the Cameroon medical council, an association of Cameroon medical doctors. Ngwanyam says it is unfortunate that both government troops and rebels are invading hospitals, which are out to save lives and reduce suffering.

“We are pushing those institutions to shut down because hospital staff [workers] feel unsafe working under those conditions and therefore, we are putting the lives of the communities in danger and peril, and we are doing ourselves a lot of harm,” said Ngwanyam. “It doesn’t matter what the reasons are, be it by the military or the boys who are fighting, we are hurting ourselves, we are shooting ourselves in the foot and the government needs to take its responsibility and stop this war [crisis].”

The Banso Baptist Hospital says it receives several hundred patients each day. Most are victims of the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions.

Cameroonian authorities have always accused aid groups of helping separatists in the country’s English-speaking western regions, a charge the hospital has strongly denied, saying its mission is only to save lives.

In August 2021, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, announced that it had withdrawn emergency health care services amid the separatist crisis. The military accused MSF of, among other charges, aiding separatist fighters in the medical aid group’s hospitals.

MSF denied the accusation and said its only goal is to save lives irrespective of whose life it is.

Source: VOA

Wearing a large hat protecting her face from the sun’s rays in Cameroon, 63-year-old Jeanne now bitterly regrets using skin whitening products after being diagnosed with skin cancer.

She is one of many women in Cameroon who use the controversial products that have been banned after social media outrage.

“I am embarrassed when people look at me,” the trader in the capital of Yaounde said, wishing to only use her first name.

After a lesion grew on her face over five months, she went to a doctor who diagnosed her with one of the most common skin cancers.

Doctors told her the cancer is linked to her use of skin lightening products for 40 years.

Jeanne, like millions worldwide, used the products for more “desirable” lighter skin, an ideal pushed by the beauty industry.

According to the Cameroon Dermatology Society (Socaderm), nearly 30 percent of residents in the economic capital Douala and a quarter of schoolgirls used the products in 2019.

For some like 20-year-old student Annette, the effects can be harsh. She said she suffers from red patches on her face, peeling skin and also burns.

“Under a strong sun, my face became hot and I had to stop,” she said.

The products with names like “White now” and “Super white”, are instantly recognisable on shop shelves by the fair-skinned women on the packaging.

Dangerous chemicals

The furore began in the summer after social media users criticised opposition MP Nourane Fotsing over her company that sells the products, angry that an elected official would profit from them.

Many of the products have never been scientifically tested and contain dangerous levels of chemicals that inhibit the production of melanin, a substance produced in the body by exposure to the sun.

One of the chemicals is hydroquinone, banned in the European Union since 2001 because of the risk of cancer and genetic mutations.

Cameroon’s health ministry on August 19 banned the import, production and distribution of cosmetic and personal hygiene products containing dangerous substances such as hydroquinone and mercury.

Hydroquinone is in fact one of the most used in whitening products in Cameroon, according to a 2019 study by Yaounde I University.

‘Public health problem’

“We encounter patients complaining of symptoms linked to skin depigmentation every day,” Alain Patrice Meledie Ndjong, a dermatologist at a hospital in Douala, said.

It is a “public health problem”.

According to the World Health Organization, the products are commonly used in many African, Asian and Caribbean countries by both women and men, and also among dark-skinned populations in Europe and North America.

Other skin whitening products include potions, tablets and even injections.

Some of the substances, when ingested, can cause diabetes, obesity, hypertension or kidney or liver failure, warned Ndjong, adding there was also a psychological impact on individuals like “anxiety and depression”.

Despite the horror stories, men and women believe they will become more beautiful after using the products.

“Beauty standards promoted by media, advertising and marketing reinforce the bias that lighter skin tone is more desirable than darker skin tone.”

Sociologist Achille Pinghane Yonta of Yaounde University offers blunter analysis of why the creams remain popular.

“There is a desire” rooted “in our consciences to want to look like” Western populations, he said.

“It’s a very old practice. It’s even said, in some parts of the country, that a light-skinned woman’s dowry is higher than that of a darker woman.”

But for Pascaline Mbida, she felt the difference.

“I noticed that men were more attracted to women with lighter skin and I had confirmation of this when I whitened my skin, I had never got so much attention,” Mbida said.

Black market

But the cost put off Mbida, who is currently unemployed. She spent 30,000 Central African Francs (45 euros) per month on the products.

The mandatory monthly minimum wage in Cameroon is 36,270 (55 euros).

Since the ban, police have launched raids, much to the chagrin of the sector’s players who claim some seizures don’t distinguish between the products that are banned by the government and those that are not.

The WHO in 2019 said “the skin lightening industry is one of the fastest growing” worldwide and was estimated to be worth $31.2 billion by 2024.

The cosmetic and personal hygiene market grew in Cameroon by seven percent in 2020 and was worth 380 billion CFA (around 580 million euros).

Despite the ban, there is a already a black market for the products.

Source: AFP

The administrator of Banso Baptist Hospital (BBH) Jean Sama and two nurses, Teyeah Relindis (a scrub nurse) and Teba Carine, an advanced practice nursing assistant (APNA) are currently being held by elements of the Cameroon government military  deployed to Kumbo for treating people considered as enemies of the state.

A sister publication Cameroon News Agency reported that the three were taken by the Francophone soldiers on September 22nd to an undisclosed location.

They are accused of treating wounded separatist fighters and it is not yet clear whether they are safe and in good physical conditions.

On September 4, separatist fighters who were receiving treatment in the hospital were dragged out of the wards and shot in front of the same hospital:

“Amba says we are working with the military and the military says we are working with Amba. What have we done? This is sad” a source quoted by Cameroon News Agency lamented.

Elsewhere in the report, CAN also revealed that last Saturday, drugs which left BBH for the Ndu Baptist Health Center were seized by soldiers loyal to the Biya regime in Yaoundé.

The BBH is a hospital of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) which is a church and is a non-partisan, non-political organization that offers medical care to everyone as an expression of Christian love.

Wounded Cameroon army soldiers have also been treated (and continue to be treated) at BBH and all other Baptist health facilities operating in the embattled region:

BBH staffs are planning to go on strike if the hospital administrator and nurses are not released. The repercussions for this could be catastrophic as BBH and its satellite health centers – are the lifeline for people with terminal conditions such as HIV, cancer or diabetes and a strike would affect them seriously.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda with files from Cameroon News Agency

The number of newly reported Covid-19 cases has dropped dramatically, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, urging the world to seize the opportunity to end the pandemic.

Newly reported cases of the disease, which has killed millions since being identified in late 2019, last week fell to the lowest level since March 2020, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” he told reporters. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.”

But the world needed to step up to “seize this opportunity”, he added.

“If we don’t take this opportunity now, we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty.”

According to WHO’s latest epidemiological report on Covid-19, the number of reported cases fell 12 percent to 4.2 million during the week ending September 4, compared to a week earlier.

‘Underestimate’

But the agency has warned that the dropping number of reported cases is deceptive, since many countries have cut back on testing and may not be detecting the less serious cases.

“The number of cases that are being reported to WHO we know are an underestimate,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO technical lead on Covid, told reporters.

“We feel that far more cases are actually circulating than are being reported to us,” she said, cautioning that the virus “is circulating at a very intense level around the world at the present time.”

Since the start of the pandemic, WHO has tallied more than 600 million cases, and some 6.4 million deaths, although both those numbers are also believed to be serious undercounts.

A WHO study published in May based on excess mortality seen in various countries during the pandemic estimated that up to 17 million people may have died from Covid in 2020 and 2021.

Van Kerkhove noted that going forward there will likely be “future waves of infection, potentially at different time points throughout the world, caused by different sub-variants of Omicron or even different variants of concern.”

But, she added, “those future waves of infection do not need to translate into future waves of death.”

‘Seize this opportunity’

In a bid to help countries to do what is needed to rein in the virus, the WHO on Wednesday published six policy briefs.

Among the recommendations, the WHO is urging countries to invest in vaccinating 100 percent of the most at-risk groups, including health workers and the elderly, and to keep up testing and sequencing for the virus.

“These policy briefs are an urgent call for governments to take a hard look at their policies, and strengthen them for Covid-19 and future pathogens with pandemic potential,” Tedros said.

“We can end this pandemic together, but only if all countries, manufacturers, communities and individuals step up and seize this opportunity.”

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan agreed.

“Even as the pandemic wanes, and as the number of cases may drop, we are going to have to maintain high levels of vigilance,” he told reporters.

“We still have a highly mutable, evolving virus that has shown us time and time again over two and a half years how it can adapt, how it can change.”

Source: AFP

China has placed millions of its citizens under renewed lockdown following fresh outbreaks of COVID-19, authorities reported Tuesday, as the government persists in its hard-line policy on containing the virus.

The measures affected about half of the 6 million residents of the port city of Dalian, along with an undisclosed number in Chengde and Shijiazhuang in Hebei province, both around three hours from the capital Beijing.

Dalian’s lockdown was due to last five days, although authorities have in past extended restrictions depending on the number of new cases.

Beijing has been relatively unaffected thus far, although travel in and out of the capital has been discouraged and residents are subject to testing on an almost daily basis.

Partial lockdowns have also been imposed on cities such as Chengdu in the southwest, Shenyang in the northeast and Jishui in the southeast.

Such measures are mandated under China’s “zero-COVID” policy, which contrasts starkly with moves by other nations to coexist with the virus through gradual easing of restrictions, vaccinations, improved therapeutics and voluntary isolation.

China has largely kept its borders closed to foreign visitors, while requiring those who do come to submit to more than a week of quarantine in hotels where sanitary conditions are often poor. Masking and regular testing are also standard and anyone found to have been in close contact with a person confirmed to have the virus is forcibly transported to field hospitals.

The World Health Organization has called China’s policy unsustainable and on Monday, a Chinese think tank issued a rare public disagreement with the ruling Communist Party, saying the curbs that have shut down cities and disrupted trade, travel and industry must change to prevent an “economic stall.”

The Anbound Research Center gave no details of possible changes but said President Xi Jinping’s government needs to focus on shoring up sinking growth. It noted the United States, Europe and Japan are recovering economically after easing anti-disease curbs.

“Preventing the risk of economic stall should be the priority task,” the think tank said in a report titled, “It’s Time for China to Adjust Its Virus Control and Prevention Policies.”

Previous lockdowns have seen tens of millions confined to their homes, sometimes for weeks. A strict lockdown in the largest city and commercial hub of Shanghai earlier this year led to protests online and in person over lack of food and medical services.

China on Tuesday reported 1,717 cases of local transmission, 52 of them in Liaoning province where Dalian is located. Most of the cases were reported in Sichuan province, whose capital is Chengdu, and the vast majority were asymptomatic.

Source: AP

The inquest of a Cameroonian woman who died in a Cork hospital after the stillbirth of her daughter will open in October, according to the Cork City Coroner.

Geraldine Yankeu died on August 8 last year at Cork University Maternity Hospital, some days after the stillbirth of her daughter Mary. A crowdfunding campaign was put in place by the Cameroonian community in Cork to have the bodies of the mum and baby repatriated to Cameroon.

Last Thursday, the Irish Examiner was told by the Cork City Coroner’s office that the deaths of both Ms Yankeu and her daughter Mary “were treated as natural and no inquest was required”.

However, on Monday, a statement from the office said: “Baby Mary Yankeu’s death was treated as a “Natural Death”. Ms Geraldine Yankeu’s death is due for hearing and will be listed for hearing as soon as a suitable date becomes available.”

Since the introduction of the 2019 Coroners Act, inquests into maternal deaths — during and after giving birth — are mandatory. In a statement to the Irish Examiner, the Cork City Coroner, Philip Comyn, said that the death of Ms Yankeu is scheduled for a full inquest hearing.

He added: “It is my intention to have a preliminary hearing in October.”

Referring to a call by the National Women’s Council for an inquest into the death as “soon as possible” in Friday’s Irish Examiner, Mr Comyn said the NWC “have never contacted me regarding this lady”.

He also said he had inquests taking place on Thursday, resulting in him not being in a position to respond to a query from the Irish Examiner on Wednesday about the length of time an inquest takes to be heard following on from the date of death.

Mr Comyn said that his office has to contend with “major staff shortages”, pointing out that it has just two staff. In comparison, Dublin City Coroner’s office has 24 staff. Dublin and Cork coronial districts are the only two full-time ones in the country.

The issue of staffing at the Cork City Coroner’s Office has been raised on a number of occasions in the past year in the Dáil amid concerns about delays in inquests.

Reform of the coronial system is under investigation at present by the Oireachtas Justice Committee, which held public hearings into the current system across the country in May. During the hearings, concern was also raised about the level of staffing in Cork.

Source: Irish examiner

Cameroon on Wednesday launched a campaign dubbed AIDS-Free Holiday to create awareness of the epidemic among students on holiday.

Cameroon was resolute to combat sexually transmitted infections especially HIV/AIDS among young people, the country’s Minister of Youth affairs and Civic education, Mounouna Foutsou said while officially launching the campaign in the capital Yaounde.

“Holiday is a period of strong mobilization of young people. We want to keep them safe during this period,” Foutsou said.

As part of the campaign which will run till August 31, over 600 young peer educators will be dispatched to 10 regions of the country to sensitize holidaymakers on the dangers of irresponsible sexual behavior.

Officials said, youths between 14-24 years are the key target of the campaign which will be guided by the theme “HIV or COVID-19, you can protect yourself, stay safe”.

According to the Ministry of Public Health, six out of 10 infections in the Central African nation are among young people with girls being the most vulnerable.

AIDS-Free Holidays has sensitized over 11 million young people, screened over 300,000, and distributed close to three million male and female condoms since it was launched in 2003, according to statistics provided by Synergies Africaines, a non-governmental organization run by Chantal Biya that organizes the sensitization annually.

About 2.9 percent of Cameroonians aged 15-49 are infected with HIV and only 39.1 percent of young Cameroonians aged 15-24 know about HIV prevention, according to a 2021 annual report published by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS.

Source: Xinhuanet

Militants of the Boko Haram group have killed a health worker in Cameroon’s Far North region, according to local and security sources.

The militants attacked a small medical store of the nurse overnight into Saturday in Tchika locality of the region, killing him and making away with some medical products, an army official in the region familiar with the attack told Xinhua.

The militants, who had targeted health workers for abduction in the region in the past, probably failed to kidnap him and decided to kill him, the officer who asked not to be named said.

Locals said, the deceased provided basic vital medical assistance to the community.

Cameroon army is stepping up offensives against the group following repeated attacks on civilians by the militants.

On Thursday, the army killed six militants in a repelled attack in Nguetchewe locality of the region, according to security reports.

Source: Xinhuanet