In Cameroon, anti-Covid-19 PCR tests will now be chargeable

A nurse facing a candidate for vaccination in a Covid center in Yaoundé.

(Illustrative image) AFP - DANIEL BELOUMOU OLOMO

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

The decision was recorded on April 4, 2022 by the government.

The freeness of these tests was very expensive in the state budget while the coffers are empty.

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With our correspondent in Yaoundé

,

It will be necessary - in the future - to put your hand in your pocket

and not just a little.

Free so far, Cameroonians will now have to pay no less than 30,000 CFA francs (45 euros) for this screening test.

Budget constraints

The decision was instructed by Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, Minister of State, Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, and his counterpart Séraphin Magloire Fouda, Minister, Secretary General of the Prime Minister.

Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh to motivate this decision which follows the persistence of Covid-19 and the resulting budgetary constraints.

In other words, the State no longer has quite the means to finance the freeness of these tests, the bill for which is starting to be steep.

By way of illustration, sources indicate that between May 2020 and January 2021, i.e. an interval of eight months, the purchase of these tests cost the State the tidy sum of 24 billion CFA francs.

To make choices

Without completely approving it, many observers say they understand the need for the government to make choices

.

So the option would be to find money and at least already, to save money in the hope of financing all or part of the most important priorities of the moment, like the crisis in the education sector;

teachers claiming a cumulative debt of nearly 200 billion CFA francs from the state employer.

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• Cameroon

• Coronavirus