Coronavirus in Mali: in Kayes, the acute lack of resources of caregivers

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In Mali, in the west of the country, part of the health personnel denounces the lack of means to fight against the coronavirus. Kayes is one of the largest cities in the country and was also the first city outside the capital to be affected by the pandemic. This Monday, April 27 in the morning, a sitting was organized to support the agents of the hospital.

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With our correspondent in Bamako, Coralie Pierret

The sitting was initially planned in front of the governorate which, this Monday morning, was crisscrossed by the police, report several residents.

The demonstrators finally gathered in front of the Fousseyni Daou regional hospital. It is a citizen movement to "  support hospital agents  ", according to organizer Djénabou Labo Traoré of the association BlonBa, because Kayes, in fact, is one of the first Malian cities to have been affected by the epidemic.

For the past two weeks, health workers have been denouncing the lack of means, equipment and training to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

"  The seven patients affected today by Covid-19 in Kayes are all medical staff who became infected the same week, when the first cases arrived,  " said Gueladio Traore, of the hospital workers' union.

"  Today four of them are cured,  " says Toumani Konaré. If this hospital director indicates having two respirators, he ensures that the equipment is available. "  Not in large quantities, but sufficient,  " he adds.

This Monday, still according to management, 80 million CFA francs would have been paid to this regional health structure.

In addition, last March, the government announced that it had mobilized an envelope of 6 billion CFA francs to fight against the coronavirus pandemic which has, to date, 23 deaths in Mali.

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• Mali
• Coronavirus

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