The Senegalese government announced on Monday the extension for at least eight days of the nighttime curfew in force since early January in two regions, including Dakar, in an attempt to stop the progression of the Covid-19.
This decision, announced on public television by the Minister of the Interior Antoine Félix Diome, maintains a measure that was originally due to expire on Monday evening.
Read also: Covid-19: night curfew in two regions of Senegal including Dakar
It comes as President Macky Sall is due to promulgate a law on Tuesday that will allow him to introduce a curfew without having to declare a state of emergency or go through parliamentary approval.
"Pending the entry into force of this law, instructions have been given to the governors of Dakar and Thiès to issue decrees which produce the same effects for eight days,"
said the Minister of the Interior.
Faced with the resurgence of cases, the Head of State announced the reestablishment on January 6 of a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. in Dakar and Thiès (west), two of the 14 regions of the country.
These two regions concentrate the vast majority of cases of contamination, while Senegal has recorded more than 23,000 cases and 526 deaths since March 2020.
Relatively preserved like many African countries, Senegal is facing a second wave of the pandemic which is testing the health system of this young but poor country.