Cape Town - A football stadium in Cameroon has been turned into a temporary isolation centre for coronavirus patients as the country grapples to contain a growing number of Covid-19 cases.
The military stadium in Yaounde will serve as one of the capacity centres in the capital and is expected to increase bed space for patients to over 3,000, public health minister Manaouda Malachie has said.
Malachie said via social media on Friday that Cameroon had 509 positive cases of Covid-19 and had recorded eight deaths from the virus. Seventeen people had recovered, he said.
By Sunday, the number of infections had risen to 650.
“Unfortunately, it will still climb these days with the massive testing campaign that we launched. So we all must cover our noses and mouths when we leave our houses. Please, protect our lives and the lives of others,” said Malachie.
Government’s active case finding strategy was starting to pay off, he wrote.
The minister had earlier accompanied the secretary general of the presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, for an inspection of the stadium, according to Kenyan publication, The Daily Nation.
Newly constructed social housing developments are also being used as isolation centres to accommodate positive citizens, according to reports.
As of Saturday, Cameroon ranked fifth on the African continent for its number of Covid-19 cases, behind South Africa, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco.
According to the minister, the growing number of identified cases of the virus was due to a revised government strategy that included mass testing.
The mass testing campaign started in the country’s economic hub, Douala, with community health workers taking to neighbourhoods to find potential cases.
“[T]here is a large order for respiratory assistance equipment through the central procurement office of the United Nations Development Programme,” Malachie said.