Health and sanitation professionals in Cameroon are cleaning homes to eradicate bedbug infestations that have taken over the nation’s capital, Yaounde, as well as a number of other towns and villages. Travellers from Europe, where other nations are similarly infested, are the source of the bloodsucking bugs, according to government officials.
Residents of Cameroon say they anticipate teams from the hygiene and sanitation department of the central African state visiting their homes to assist in getting rid of the pests.
Kuffo Marilyne, a fruit vendor, resides in Yaounde’s Madagascar neighbourhood. She claimed that, believing the bugs in her house to be tiny cockroaches, she initially employed insecticides to get rid of them. She stated she was taken aback when, following their insect bites, three of her children reported irritability and insomnia.
Health professionals report that skin rashes or blisters result from bedbug bites.
Kuffo said she sent her kids to the hospital for treatment, but most of her neighbours who also reported having bedbugs in their houses are not wealthy enough to be able to afford to treat their kids.
Numerous impoverished Yaounde neighbourhoods have large infestations of bedbugs, according to reports from Cameroon’s government.
According to Cameron’s health ministry, the bugs typically induce psychological distress, insomnia, anxiety, and despair. They emerge at night to feast on human blood.
According to the administration, several hundred hygienic and medical personnel have been sent to sanitise dwellings and eradicate the pests.
A medical staff member at Yaounde’s Cite Verte District Hospital named Mariline Longue stated that over 70% of residents in a few of the city’s crowded neighbourhoods had reported having bedbugs in their residences and places of business. Longue claimed that a large number of bedbugs were concealed in mattresses, bed frame cracks, chair and couch crevices, and other areas of the 30 houses they inspected in the capital of Cameroon on Wednesday morning.
The administration stated that there are concerns that multiple more cities and villages may have been infected in addition to Yaounde and the capital city of Douala.
According to Yaounde City Council sanitation officer Maritial Ayissi, the bugs are imported from Europe.
It is regrettable, according to Ayissi, that border protection measures were not taken by government officials when the Cameroon National Hygiene and Sanitation Association issued a warning in September about travellers arriving from Europe carrying bedbugs in their luggage. He claimed that a great deal of used items, such as blankets, beds, and clothing, that are brought into Cameroon by traders, especially from France, contain a large number of bedbugs concealed therein.
Since the bugs vanished from everyday life more than 20 years ago, according to Ayissi, they have grown more resistant to chemical treatments.
Concerns about the insects’ potential spread to neighbouring governments that depend mostly on Cameroon for their products, such as landlocked Chad and the Central African Republic, have been voiced by civil society activists and rights groups. Through Cameroon’s Douala seaport, more than 80% of products shipped into Chad and the CAR originate in Europe.
Airports and products imported from Europe will be sanitised by Cameroonian officials in the event that allegations of bedbug infestations prove to be accurate.
France declared in September that tourists were allegedly uploading images and videos of bedbugs aboard high-speed trains, the local transport system in Paris, and the Charles de Gaulle airport, causing a panic.
While the French government did not deny allegations that the insects had been discovered in certain houses, it did state in October that there was no indication of a return of the biting pests on public transit.
