A “very overwhelmed” Mayotte hospital, a “defective” drinking water supply and sanitation networks and “years of incompetence on the part of local elected officials.” These are some of the factors that favored the cholera epidemic that caused the death of a three-year-old child on Wednesday, May 8 in Mayotte, Dominique Voynet, director of the Paris Regional Health Agency, said in an interview. 2020 to 2021.
The epidemic is “contained” and “there is no explosion, but that does not mean that it will stop overnight”, declared on Thursday the Minister responsible for Health, Frédéric Valletoux, who was traveling to Mayotte on Friday the morning, to RTL, stating that 65 people had been infected with the disease since mid-March and 3,700 people had been vaccinated.
For Dominique Voynet, one of the main causes of the spread of the disease is “the drinking water supply and sanitation networks”, which “are failing in Mayotte” and have been doing so “for years”.
“The Mayotte water and sanitation union, led by the mayors of different municipalities, should improve the distribution of drinking water to the population of Mahor. Work has been put on the table, but the projects are not moving forward.
“The policy of tracking foreigners” is questioned
For the former Minister of Environment of the Jospin government, it is up to the State to “regain control of administrative delays” and “guarantee that work is accelerated to guarantee better access to drinking water and allow the sanitation of wastewater.”
Dominique Voynet also regrets that the construction of a second hospital in Mayotte remains stalled. “The construction of a second establishment, located in the west of the island, was already under discussion at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, during my mandate at the ARS,” he says. “But for three years the work has not even started. It appears that local elected officials do not understand their responsibility. “We are years behind.”
While the Government intends to fight against illegal immigration to Mayotte, particularly from the Comoros, where thousands of cases of cholera have been recorded since the beginning of the year, Dominique Voynet considers that “the policy of tracking foreigners” can also have an impact on the health crisis.
For her, this leads to “many families not daring to ask for help, or not going to health centers. If the child suffers from diarrhea, parents may have to say to themselves: ‘Let’s wait for it to pass.’ “. And that can cause disasters.”
Source: BFM TV
