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#COVID19: 5% Of Gabonese Are Currently Infected By COVID-19

Since the beginning of the pandemic in the country, 1,151,098 persons have been tested with 27,643 positive cases.

The Central African country of Gabon is facing the steepest rise in the number of COVID-19 infections. 

In the last six days, between Wednesday, Sept. 15 and 21, the national infection rate  jumped from 3.8 per cent to 5 per cent.

“This is a very disquieting situation especially as schools are due to reopen on September 27 and some school goers and teachers have already resumed classes in some areas within a sanitary situation where the Delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading steadily,” an official of the Pilot Committee for the Fight Against the Coronavirus (COPIL-CORONAVIRUS) told HumAngle  on condition of anonymity as she is not the official spokesperson of the body.

“The spectacular rise in infections within the month of September is a big cause for concern. There is a big jump upwards in infection rates every two days.”


“From 3.8 per cent on September 15, after a rise of 0.1 per cent as compared to two days earlier, the positivity rate passed to 4.4 per cent by September 17, which was an increase of 1 per cent within 48 hours,” the official said.

“The latest figures over the weekend up to today border on 5 per cent.” 

By the end of last week, the COPIL-CORONAVIRUS announced 352 new cases from among 8,023 tests carried out in eight of the nine provinces of the country.

One death has been announced in Mekambo in the Moyen-Ogooue province which has reported only one active case so far.

There have been 122 new treated cases recorded while 89 persons are still hospitalised with 22 in reanimation for respiratory distress.

The COPIL-CORONAVIRUS is worried that with the present rise in infection rates, hospital beds may soon be saturated, a situation that had already been envisaged by the Presidency of the Republic.

“Practically half the hospital beds reserved for COVID-19 patients have been once again occupied. If things continue in this way, our hospital system which has remarkably withstood the situation to date could very quickly become saturated,” a spokesperson of the Presidency declared last week.

Nevertheless, the Presidency and COPIL-CORONAVIRUS are reassuring that the relevant measures have been taken to face the challenges of the third wave of the virus and are calling on the populations to respect the barrier measures put in place and to get themselves vaccinated.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in the country, 1,151,098 persons have been tested among whom 27,643 positive cases were detected with 26,149 already successfully treated and 175 deaths recorded.


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Chief Bisong Etahoben

Chief Bisong Etahoben is a Cameroonian investigative journalist and traditional ruler. He writes for international media and has participated in several transnational investigations. Etahoben won the first-ever Cameroon Investigative Journalist Award in 1992. He serves as a member of a number of international investigative journalism professional bodies including the Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR). He is HumAngle's Francophone and Central Africa editor.

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