The Center for Research on Filariasis and Other Tropical Diseases (CRFILMT) donated two respirators to the Jamot Hospital in Yaoundé. According to Prof. Joseph Kamgno, Director of the Center, this equipment is aimed at strengthening the technical platform of the hospital which is responsible for the care of Covid-19 patients.

“These are miniaturized respirators equipped with an automatic antiviral filtration system. When they are placed on patients, they provide respiratory assistance, but at the same time, the air that the patients breathe out will not allow the virus to spread in the environment. This helps to avoid contamination,” he explained.

For the beneficiaries, this donation comes at just the right time. “For the number of beds available for the Covid-19, we have 6 oxygen extractors which were sufficient for 6 patients, but sometimes patients had to stay on oxygen extractors for a long time,” the director of the Jamot Hospital, Prof. Joseph Marie Mendimi Nkodo, said stressing the new devices will allow the hospital “to be even more optimal in producing more expected results.”

This donation has also laid the groundwork for long-term cooperation between Yaoundé's Jamot Hospital and the CRFILMT. “We are going to develop the micro-bacterial division and as this hospital is involved in the treatment of tuberculosis and other pulmonary diseases, we believe that a scientific cooperation will be established between these two institutions,” said the director of the CRFILMT.

Such a partnership, according to the director of the Jamot Hospital, will enable us to deepen learning on micro-bacterial diseases, and “we will deepen the capacity of Cameroonians to manage these diseases which are still real public health problems in our context.”

According to official statistics, Cameroon has already exceeded 3,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. The 10 regions of the country are affected with 140 deaths against 1,567 recovered as of 14 May 2020.

BE