© Arsene Mpiana, AFP
Passengers get tested upon arriving at Kinshasa airport on August 15, 2020.
In all Congolese provinces, with the exception of North Kivu and Ituri, the curfew imposed in December 2020 to combat the spread of Covid-19 was lifted on Tuesday. In addition, vaccinated travelers no longer need to carry out a screening test to enter DR Congo.
The Congolese government decided on Monday February 14 to lift the curfew decreed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (RD Congo) in December 2020 to combat the spread of the coronavirus and no longer imposes a Covid-19 test on “fully vaccinated” travelers, we learned on Tuesday February 15 from an official source.
In view of the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, it was decided to “immediately lift the curfew throughout the country except for the provinces under state of siege”, namely the North- Kivu and Ituri, said Media Minister Patrick Muyaya, Congolese government spokesman.
The government has also decided “to abolish the covid-19 test at the entrance to the national territory for any fully vaccinated traveler” as well as for any traveler on domestic flights, he added in the minutes of a meeting. held around Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi.
“The lifting of the curfew does not mean the end of the pandemic” in the country, insisted Patrick Muyaya who warned that the risk of experiencing a fifth wave of Covid-19 is real in view of “the seasonality” observed these last two years.
Mandatory mask indoors
He recalled that the compulsory and correct wearing of a mask is “strictly applied” in workplaces, schools, universities, places of worship and commerce, banks, places where sports activities take place, hospitals. , in public transit, restaurants, accommodation establishments and public buildings.
For the head of experts in charge of the fight once morest Covid-19 in DR Congo, Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe, “the 4th wave caused by the Omicron variant is behind us”, justifying these relief measures. However, it was observed that “the epidemic occurs in DR Congo between the months of April and July”, he warned.
In DR Congo, a country of regarding 90 million inhabitants, only “224,958 people have been completely vaccinated”. Despite this low rate of vaccination coverage, DR Congo seems rather spared by Covid-19, which officially killed 1,355 people out of the 85,839 cases diagnosed. On Sunday, the country recorded five new cases of Covid-19.
With AFP
