Covid-19: Mayotte and Réunion under tension
Hospital staff with a patient at Mamoudzou hospital, Mayotte, February 27, 2021. AFP - ALI AL-DAHER
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Tense situation in the French territories of the Indian Ocean.
Hospitals in Mayotte and Réunion are reaching saturation point.
A medical security team landed in Mayotte this week, but despite everything, medical evacuations to the metropolis should take place.
Publicity
Read more
Mayotte, under general confinement for three weeks, has despite everything in recent days experienced a saturation of its hospital system.
Consequence: since the beginning of February, 57 patients have been transferred to hospitals on the neighboring island of Reunion, in turn overloading the available resuscitation beds, in the midst of the outbreak of the epidemic due to the South African variant.
While in Réunion, the number of new daily cases continues to increase, the goal is now to avoid saturation of intensive care services at all costs.
This week, civil security teams were therefore dispatched to Mayotte to limit evacuations to Reunion as much as possible, and to take care of patients directly on site.
Despite everything, the pressure on the Mayotte hospital system is such that the Samu, the health authorities and Air France are actively working on the organization of medical evacuations between Mayotte and Paris, 8000km away.
These operations could take place in the coming days thanks to long-haul flights of 11am which would each carry 14 resuscitated patients on stretchers.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
France
Coronavirus
Health and medicine