By NOELA EBOB BISONG
North West Regional Delegate of Public Health, Dr. Kingsley Che Nsoh, has engaged the battle against the spread of the deadly Coronavirus in the North West region of Cameroon, by screening all those entering the region.
Alongside a team of medics, Saturday, March 21, 2020, the campaign recorded thousands of travelers being screened as they made entrance in to the regional chief town of Bamenda.
The screening exercise took place at Matazem in Santa, where, no case was recorded.
The SUN gathered that the team was at the site at about 4am to commence work, which saw them spending several hours to ensure the situation was well handled.
According to the regional delegate, “The known cases are in Bafoussam, Douala and Yaoundé. Today, we left our houses at 4 a.m. and came here at the Matazem Toll Gate because we know that more than 1,000 people pass here every day to Bamenda and it is the main entry point. The objective of our exercise today is first of all sensitisation. We want people to be aware of all the WHO measures that they are expected to respect so that they don’t get infected with the Coronavirus or transmit it to other persons.”
Dr. Nsoh equally observed that “The second thing is that we want to look for risk factors. So we are screening them for temperature. And we are asking them questions to know if they are coming from abroad, because we know that there are many cases abroad. And we also want to know if they have come in close contact with any of the confirmed cases in Yaoundé, Douala or Bafoussam. So far, we have been able to screen 3,100 persons. Fortunately, we have not been able to get a suspected case yet. If we did, we would have taken the case to the regional hospital and quarantined the other passengers. We’ll continue this exercise daily, morning and evening, for 14 days renewable.”
According to the delegate, “We have sensitised them on the government measures and the need to wash their hands with soap and clean running water. We are sure they will be our mouthpiece when they go to the various Divisions. We have told them to avoid crowded place.”