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Coronavirus: France continues to see fall in daily death toll and hospital patient numbers

France on Tuesday reported 531 deaths from Covid19 in 24 hours as the number of people in hospital and intensive care continued to decline.

Published: 21 April 2020 19:54 CEST
Coronavirus: France continues to see fall in daily death toll and hospital patient numbers
The numbers of coronavirus patients in French hospitals have been falling steadily. Photo: AFP

The daily tally – 387 deaths in hospital and 144 in nursing homes – brought France's total epidemic death toll to 20,796, France's Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon told reporters.

There were 30,106 infected people in hospital, he said – a daily decline of 478 in an encouraging downward trend.

READ ALSO Coronavirus situation in France 'is under control' says Prime Minister

Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon. Photo: AFP

There were also 250 fewer people in intensive care – a crucial marker of epidemic decline – for a total of 5,433, Salomon said. This represented the 13th day of decline in a row.

The total tally included 12,900 people who died in hospital and 7,896 in nursing homes.

Salomon said the epidemic remained active in France, adding “we must remain fully mobilised.”

France has been in lockdown since March 17th in a bid to slow the spread of the epidemic. President Emmanuel Macron announced last week that the lockdown will be progressively lifted from May 11th.

Schools could gradually reopen then but cafes, cinemas and cultural venues would remain closed, and there could be no summer festivals until mid-July at the earliest.

READ ALSO 'Living with the virus' – this is the plan for life after lockdown in France

 

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  1. My name is Steven, Iam an american that lives in southern Calif. 6 months of the year and 6 months in Normandie, Fr. I signed up and paid as a member 1 month ago, but quite often as I begin to read an article it is blanked out and tells me my reading time is up and I need to become a member, why?

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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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