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HEALTH

Coronavirus: France doubles fine for littering face masks

The French government has increased the fine for dropping face masks on city streets.

Published: 7 June 2020 18:58 CEST
Coronavirus: France doubles fine for littering face masks
A mask on the ground in France. Image: JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK / AFP

Formerly, discarding coronavirus masks would attract a fine of €68, but that amount has been raised to 135€.

Face masks, which have exploded in popularity since the outbreak of the coronavirus, have become frequently discarded on city streets. 

Brune Poirson, France’s Secretary for the Environment, said that everyone in France had the responsibility to ensure that masks were disposed of thoughtfully. 

“The plastic waste from the Covid-19 crisis reminds us that clean oceans begin with clean sidewalks,” Poirson said on Twitter. 

Poirson said the increase in the fine was necessary in order to combat “incivility and pollution”. 

 

 

A report from Scuba Diver magazine in late May said that discarded masks and gloves “litter the seabed in the Mediterranean”. 

 

 

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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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