2024-05-09 20:23:23
The Minister responsible for health, Frédéric Valletoux, wanted to be reassuring, Thursday May 9, during a trip to Mayotte, estimating “content” the cholera epidemic which has been raging on the island for regarding two months.
“There is no explosion, but that does not mean that it will stop overnight”, the minister told the press, on the sidelines of a visit to the university hospital center (CHU) on the island. If “the number of cases we have today has not stabilized”l’intervention “rapid, coordinated and proportionate services” made it possible to keep the “situation under control”he added.
Earlier, the minister visited the Kirson district of Koungou, where at least fifty cases of cholera have been declared to date and where a 3-year-old girl died Wednesday evening. Mr. Valletoux noted that in neighboring Comoros “the epidemic started a month and a half earlier but today there are thousands of cases and almost a hundred deaths”. “We see that in Mayotte, the response is adequate”he compared.
Read also | Cholera, a scourge on the rise worldwide, particularly in Africa
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Antibiotics and vaccination
On site, he spoke with the teams from the regional health agency (ARS) responsible for disinfecting homes as soon as a case is suspected. “We also distribute antibiotics to relatives and we vaccinate as much as possible. The population is very receptive”explained Olivia Noël, field coordinator who is one of the 29 reservists who came as reinforcements to “contain the epidemic” in this French island in the Indian Ocean.
Estelle Youssouffa, deputy of the Libertés, independents, overseas and territories (LIOT) group of Mayotte, recalled that “the population, mostly foreign, does not always have a telephone and is often afraid of the authorities”SO “people wait until the last moment” to alert emergency services. The elected official recommends relaunching the distribution of bottled water to limit the risks of contamination by unclean water, one of the vectors of transmission of the disease with contaminated food.
The first cases of cholera in Mayotte were recorded in mid-March among people returning from neighboring Comoros, where the epidemic is surging with 98 deaths, according to the latest official report. In Mayotte, the first cases diagnosed in patients who had not left the island appeared at the end of April.
Cholera, a bacterial disease, can cause acute diarrhea and lead to death from dehydration within one to three days. Since mid-March, 58 cases of cholera have been recorded by the Mahorese authorities, including six active cases at the last report dated May 6.
Disinfection of the patient’s home
A protocol developed in February to prevent the spread of the disease provides for the disinfection of the patient’s home, the identification and treatment of contact cases and vaccination by gradually expanding the area concerned around the home of the patient suffering from cholera.
At the Mayotte University Hospital, Alimata Gravaillac, head of the emergency department, stressed that kwassa-kwassa, these boats usually used by migrants from neighboring Comoros to reach Mayotte, “arrive directly at the hospital with sick people”.
These convoys, which she calls “sanitary kwassa”cause a “additional pressure for caregivers”. Emergency physicians, who have “40 patients to treat” upon taking up service, must “hold over time”she estimated.
Questioned on RTL, Benjamin Davido, infectious disease specialist at Garches hospital (Hauts-de-Seine), stressed that “to turn off the tap, we would have to, in quotes, also tackle what is happening in the Comoros”. The current epidemic will be ” very difficult “ has “curb it, and we risk ending up with a very rapid increase in cases, perhaps even several more deaths that will occur”he warns.
Read also | Climate change causes cholera to soar in Africa
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