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HEALTH

Paris marathon postponed over spread of coronavirus in France

The Paris Marathon that was due to take place in the French capital next month has been postponed due to the spread of coronavirus.

Published: 5 March 2020 18:23 CET
Paris marathon postponed over spread of coronavirus in France
AFP

The marathon, which sees around tens of thousands of runners take to the streets of Paris, was due to take place on Sunday April 5th.

But given the increasing number of coronavirus cases in France and the government's determination to slow the spread, the race has been postponed to an undecided later date, Le Parisien newspaper first reported on Thursday.

The decision to postpone the event comes after Sunday's Paris half marathon was cancelled for the same reasons.

The marathon will now be put put back until October 18th, the organisers told AFP in a press statement.

READ MORE: What you need to know about coronavirus in France (Paywall Free)

Some 65,000 runners from 150 different countries were registered to take part on a route than snakes its way through the capital from the Champs- Elyseés to the Bois de Vincennes and back across the city via the banks of the Seine.

French Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu had suggested earlier the day that sports events in the coming weeks would be looked at on a case by case basis to decide whether they needed to be cancelled, postponed or allowed to go ahead.

READ ALSO: Should I cancel my trip to France over coronavirus outbreak?

 

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HEALTH

France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

Nearly 200 cases of cholera have been reported on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, which is struggling to contain the deadly epidemic.

Published: 21 June 2024 14:08 CEST
France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

“As of June 18th, 2024, 193 cases of cholera have been reported in Mayotte,” France’s Santé publique France health agency reported in its weekly update.

Of those, 172 were locally acquired cases, while 21 were in people infected in the neighbouring Comoros archipelago and countries on the African continent.

Cholera is an infectious disease typically causing severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. It spreads easily in unsanitary conditions.

Mayotte, which is home to around 320,000 people, reported its first locally acquired cases of cholera in late April, according to officials in Paris.

Two people have died since the beginning of the epidemic, one of them a three-year-old girl.

Santé publique France warned there was a particularly high risk of transmission in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, “as long as access to drinking water and sanitation is unsatisfactory”.

French authorities have been criticised for failing to secure access to drinking water to prevent a cholera epidemic in its overseas territory.

President Emmanuel Macron called for cholera to be ‘consigned to the past’ when he hosted a summit on Thursday on vaccine production in Africa.

Many parts of Africa have recently seen fatal outbreaks of cholera, which has highlighted the shortage of local vaccine production.

The Comoros, which has been affected by a cholera epidemic for the past four months, has recorded 134 deaths and more than 8,700 cases, according to a report published by local authorities this month.

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