The United States Scales up the fight against COVID-19 in Cameroon with Additional $2.9 Million Assistance through the American Rescue Plan

The U.S. government announced on November 24, 2021, that an additional $2.9 million in urgent COVID-19 assistance is now available for Cameroon through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The $2.9 million is part of the Biden Administration’s commitment to accelerate the equitable global prevention, preparedness for, and response to COVID-19 in the United States and around the world.  This assistance from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) will provide the required support to reduce morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 and mitigate transmission in Cameroon.  Given the issue of vaccine hesitancy and the need to rapidly increase vaccine uptake for the Cameroonian population, more than 50 percent of ARP funding is allocated to address vaccine misinformation and disinformation and to stimulate COVID-19 vaccine demand.

Announcing the good news, the U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires a.i Mary Daschbach said, “we are proud to provide this additional assistance which will help the Cameroonian population access life-saving COVID-19 vaccines.  We encourage all Cameroonians to take the COVID-19 vaccines, which are safe, effective, and the best way to protect your family, friends, communities, and loved ones.”

This supplemental assistance builds on more than $5 million in COVID-19 assistance to Cameroon since the start of the pandemic.  Thanks to this support from the U.S. government, 162 laboratory personnel from the five most at-risk regions benefited from training on sample collection, packaging, and transport. 847 healthcare workers also received training on best practices in infection prevention and control.  These efforts build on decades of life-saving work and U.S. leadership in tackling global health crises.  Over the past 60 years, USAID has saved millions of lives from diseases such as Ebola, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and now COVID-19.

Diseases know no borders.  The U.S. government is committed to partnering with the government of Cameroon to end the COVID-19 pandemic, mitigate its devastating social and economic impacts, and build back a world that is even better prepared for future outbreaks.  Together, we can kick COVID-19 out of Cameroon.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of U.S. Embassy in Cameroon.