Some 27 men and women at the Bamenda-food market North West Region of Cameroon have received facemasks to help protect themselves the against the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in their communities.
This was a gesture from the Centre for Strategic Communication, Peacebuilding and Sustainable Development known as CESCOMPSUD through their Executive Director Mrs Rosaline Obah represented at this activity by one of the Center's Volunteers, Pechuqui Laurata.
According to the Executive Director of CESCOMPSUD, traders are most at risk of being infected by the virus , since they come in contact with different sets of people on daily basis. "It doesn't only end there, trader more often render public services to hundreds of customers daily who come to buy food commodity and other household items. In the process of these transactions, they have to deal with communicating with this number or persons and usually will surely have saliva come out of their mouths while in conversation and bargaining in the buying and selling process. If either of two persons involved in the process has a facemask, the infection rate will be minimized. And since it was easy to locate these local business owners, CESCOMPSUD decided to have them as major targets for the reach out. We will be embarking on a similar activity to other vulnerable groups in the days ahead as our own little way to reduce or minimize the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic thereby assisting in saving lives. Rosaline Akah Obah intimated.
This distribution comes at a time when the numbers of cases of people infected with the coronavirus disease is on the rise in the country with some cases recorded in The Litoral and West regions.
These women were cautioned by Pechuqui Laurata who represented CESCOMPSUD to be on guard and keep respecting the barrier measures put in place by the government and the World Health Organization. She went further to school the women and men on how to put on the facemask and how greatly it will help safe their families and customers.
So far Cameroon has recorded over 22,000 cases of infected person's with the virus since it's outbreak in March.
Though the people can easily avoid getting infected, many have refused to put on a facemask. Some have taken the facemask in Bamenda as a chin mask. All these and others not mentioned are believed to have caused the increase in the number of infected persons. However there is an 95% chance that this virus could be a thing of the past if people learn to respect the measures. Nevertheless there is hope as the US has released a vaccine which has been confirmed to be 95%active from The US company Moderna Shows.
As Cameroonians anticipate the coming of the vaccine, the Centre for Strategic Communication, Peacebuilding and Sustainable Development known as CESCOMPSUD hopes the facemask shared goes a long way to safe the lives of many.
By Pechuqui Laurata
Comments