(Business in Cameroon) - To support Cameroonians quarantined in Wuhan, Cameroon instructed the Ministry of Finance to provide XAF50 million to its embassy in Beijing for assistance.

This was revealed in a statement issued on February 20, 2020, by the Cameroonian Ministry of External Relations. According to the statement, this was instructed by President Paul Biya as an initial emergency procedure in the view of the difficult living conditions in the quarantined area and the distress of Cameroonians in that area.

Indeed, since late 2019, Wuhan, capital city of the Hubei province in China, has been the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic.

According to the census carried out by the Cameroonian Embassy in China, out of the 300 Cameroonian nationals residing in the Hubei province, 200 are currently confined in the quarantined city of Wuhan. Fortunately, the statement notes, they are all safe and sound.  

 “The Government of the Republic of Cameroon continues to closely monitor the evolution of this epidemic in conjunction with Chinese authorities. It won’t fail to inform the national opinion of any subsequent initiative to bring comfort to our compatriots,” said Felix Mbayu, Deputy Minister of External Relations.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China and its spread to parts of the world, the epidemic has claimed nearly 2,000 lives and more than 72,438 cases of infection have been reported. 

Sylvain Andzongo