Senegal: the reasons for the sharp increase in Covid-19 cases
A health worker takes the temperature of passengers on a bus in Dakar (photo illustration).
REUTERS / Zohra Bensemra
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The cases of Covid-19 have multiplied by nine in Senegal, between the months of June and July.
A third wave that has grown significantly since May 17, with a sharp rise in severe cases and deaths.
Alioune Badara Ly is the new director of the health emergency operations center of the Ministry of Health.
He explains why Senegal is facing an unprecedented new wave.
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With our correspondent in Dakar
,
Théa Ollivier
"
The first factor is related to the
Delta variant which circulates
,"
says
Alioune Badara Ly.
This increase in the number of cases coincided with the moment when the Pasteur Institute showed that of the samples that were being sequenced, about 60% were from Delta, therefore extremely transmissible.
The second reason is that it corresponded to a time when there was a slack in the general population;
compliance with barrier measures was not observed.
The
"
population movements
"
The third thing is that we also noted a lot of gatherings, in the week following the Tabaski, at the level of all the regions, the number of cumulative cases were indeed on the rise because it corresponded to a moment, when there was a lot of population movement, from Dakar to the interior of the regions. Dakar which is the epicenter of the disease had more than 65% of cases.
Continue to
"
work
"
We must continue to work and ensure that gatherings are prohibited. Some are banned by the governors, others are a source of concern. There are still measures to be taken, efforts to be made. This extremely significant increase in the number of cases justifies the pressure on the health system in terms of requests for care offers
, ”concludes the new director of the health emergency operations center of the Ministry of Health.
►
To read also:
Covid-19: Senegal passes the milestone of one million vaccinated
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Senegal
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