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On this beautiful summer day, the atmosphere is peaceful in the "Covid-19" unit of the Nouakchott Hospital Center, in Mauritania. A year and a half after the start of the pandemic, a few rooms are still welcoming patients with coronavirus.
The epidemic peak is a thing of the past. Gone is the electric atmosphere in the wards where doctors and nurses, exhausted, ran to the intensive care beds. The strong pressure that weighed on their shoulders fell.
In the corridors of the hospital center, a man, who had come for additional examinations, remembers: “At first, I admit that I was very apprehensive before agreeing to follow the treatment protocol. I was absolutely not reassured in this particular context of a pandemic ”. In December 2021, Hamady Samba Sy, 73, was cared for for almost three weeks in the intensive care ward. This retired civil servant recognizes that his anxiety began to dissipate when he was taken care of by professional caregivers who came to transfer him urgently to the hospital in a state-of-the-art ambulance. “I was surprised by the quality of care throughout my stay,” he recalls.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, in Mauritania as elsewhere in the world, this scene has unfortunately been part of everyday life. To stem the spread of the virus and save lives, major restrictive measures have been taken: confinement, closing of borders, etc., resulting in an economy at a standstill. In addition to social measures, the country has strengthened its health system by equipping itself with a modern medical platform and by creating a center dedicated to the care of Covid-19 patients.
The African Development Bank has released emergency budget support of nearly 10 million US dollars to help the country deal with the coronavirus. Mauritania also benefited from the G5 Sahel Pandemic Support Project , a regional program of nearly US$22 million financed by the Bank and implemented in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (UNHCR).
“We couldnt believe it. Rumors about the quality of care in public hospitals were unjustified, says Aïssata Sy, Hamadys wife, today. My husband had been in bed for ten days at home coughing, choking, but we werent ready to put him through the Covid care pathway at the hospital.
For some, the coronavirus was a pipe dream. But reality very quickly caught up with everyones daily life. While the health crisis was being brought under control, the effects of the restrictions were quickly felt, especially among small traders.
Aïchetou Boubout, a young couscous seller, remembers the impact of the restrictive measures on her business. “During the confinement, we hardly worked. We were going to sell our couscous but we had to hurry to get home before curfew. »
Every morning, Aïchetou prepared the couscous, dried it and packaged it to sell it at the end of the afternoon at the distant central market. But because of the curfew, she didnt have enough time to sell her wares on the spot. So she went home, early in the evening, with some income, far from what she normally received. |
