Cameroon’s coronavirus tally as of April 3 stood at 509, Health Minister Manaouda Malachie confirmed in his daily briefing posted on Twitter.
Of the current figure, 203 were new cases that came from tests run 800 travellers arrived in the country recently. Cameroon also has 17 recovered patients with eight deaths.
“Our active case finding strategy is starting to pay off. We did 800 tests (majority of travelers) 203 of them are positive but asymptomatic, that we must leave the community and treat,” the Minister wrote in his post.
Cameroon is the most impacted country across Central Africa. Only DR Congo has passed the 100 mark in the region with 134. Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo Republic, Central African Republic and Chad have 21, 16, 22, 8 and 8 cases respectively.
The Minister in outlining government strategy to deal with the pandemic said six main measures were being implemented: massive and generalized testing, placement in immediate treatment of cases, active surveillance of suspect cases.
The remaining are awareness of the populations (hygiene, distance, etc.), border control and development of reliable local expertise for the response.