UN Cameroon Addresses COVID-19

In Cameroon, the first case of COVID-19 was detected in Yaounde on March 5th, 2020. Presently, Cameroon’s ranks second in sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa, with more than 1600 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The UN team is working along three main axes:

1. Scaling up the COVID 19 emergency health response
2. Integrating COVID 19 in ongoing humanitarian response operations
3. Analysing, preventing and mitigating the immediate and long-term socio-economic impacts

1. Scaling up the COVID 19 emergency health response

Working alongside the Government and in support to the National Response Plan, the UN has developed a Country Prevention and Response Plan along the 8 response pillars of: Country-level coordination, planning, and monitoring; Risk communication and community engagement; Surveillance, rapid response teams, and case investigation; Points of entry; National laboratories; Infection prevention and control; Case management and Operational support and logistics. 14 UN entities are engaged in this response with a financial ask of 15.5 million USD as follows:

2. Integrating COVID 19 in ongoing humanitarian response operations

Cameroon is affected by three, concurrent, complex humanitarian emergencies: Boko Haram violence in the Far North region; the influx of refugees from the Central African Republic into the eastern regions (Adamawa, North and East) and violence in the North West and South West regions with spillover effects in the West and Littoral regions.  Beyond the epidemiological health response, the COVID19 pandemic will have an impact on all sectors and severely affect populations already in need. In this regard, the Humanitarian Country Team, following a quick impact analysis, revised its on-going operations to ensure these fully integrated the need to mitigate and prevent the risk posed by COVID-19 and that increased vulnerabilities and humanitarian needs were considered. The Humanitarian Response Plan was upgraded to include a USD 100 million envelope for COVID19, for a total of USD 399 million.

3. Analyse, prevent and mitigate the immediate and long-term social and macro-economic impacts

The third pillar of the UN’s response is focused on addressing the immediate and mid to long term socio-economic impacts of the crisis on Cameroon’s most vulnerable populations. The UN is supporting the Government of Cameroon analyze and draw up a National Response Plan. The establishment of a UN-Government Basket Fund for the COVID 19 response is envisaged.

Key UN Achievements

Coordination

• The UN RC leads the interface between Government and the Donor group, chairing weekly donor coordination meetings as well as broader information sharing sessions with Member States.

Emergency health response

• Recruitment of 19 epidemiologists, 4 experts in infection prevention and control, 1 expert in medicine and medical products
• Coordination and information management support to the national emergency centre (COUSP)
• Support to surveillance and contact tracing, including through hiring of 19 vehicles for COUSP
• Sourcing of tests, PPEs and medical equipment, with the support of WB and Fond Mondiale
• Recruitment and Training of Community relays for awareness raising, social mobilization and sensitization activities;
• Briefing over 180 major stakeholders at central level in RCCE and rumour management, including a simulation exercise
• Organising a Rapid national Survey on the Needs of People Living with HIV in the Context of COVID-19
• M&E mechanism with MINCOM to inform our RCCE indicators (outreach, and community feedbacks) and with MoH on the engagement of community leaders including web influencers indicator;

Capacity Building

• Capacity building of women's organizations as frontline responders of COVID-19
• Training of staff of refugee camps and community health workers in Risk communication, In partnership with the Ministry of Public Health.
• Technical and financial support to the COUSP Communication task force for the Emergency Response Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials conceived, validated, printed and disseminated in all regions (flyers, posters, billboards).

Risk Communication and Community Engagement

• Production of more than 120,000 posters and 160,000 flyers (English and French), and being disseminated with CRC SPD, Mayors and the National Religious Leaders Platform;
• Information/communication with implementation partners for the integration of sensitization of communities on COVID-19 prevention in their current activities;
• Support to community radio stations for the dissemination of key messages on COVID-19 and fight against misinformation about COVID-19 (WHO, MSP, UNICEF and UNESCO Message Relay);
• Production of TV documentary in partnership with national Television CRTV, and subsequent programmes with lead UN Heads of Agencies on the impacts of COVID-19
• Production and broadcasting on social media of an awareness video on COVID-19 for deaf;

Analysis

• Analysis on the gender dimension of COVID