Nairobi,May 12, (dpa/GNA) – French President, Emmanuel Macron, was in Nairobi on Monday for the Africa Forward Summit, where he announced investments totalling €23 billion to boost the continent’s economic development.
Macron said the investments could create more than 250,000 direct jobs in France and Africa, with €14 billion euros to come from French donors and the rest from African investors.
He thanked the companies represented at the event and praised the “very concrete” results.
According to French media reports citing the Élysée Palace, the funds are to be channelled primarily into the energy transition, digitalization and agriculture.
Thirty state leaders, as well as UN Secretary General António Guterres, were expected to attend the inaugural Africa Forward Summit.
Those present included Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Gabon’s junta leader Brice Oligui Nguema and Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch.
The event aims to develop a new partnership model between Africa and France and promotes increased investment over traditional development aid.
The focus is on direct investment, equity stakes, loans, guarantees and grants for projects. The summit is also intended to symbolize the paradigm shift in France’s Africa policy announced by Macron, moving away from colonial-style relations towards a more equal partnership.
GNA
Amsterdam,May 12, (dpa/GNA) – The last passengers disembarked the hantavirus-hit Hondius cruise ship in Tenerife on Monday, before the vessel began its journey onwards to the Netherlands.
A final group of 28 people, both passengers and crew, left the ship under strict security measures, before being flown out in the evening on two planes bound for Eindhoven, the Spanish RTVE broadcaster reported.
The ship had to be moored at a pier to allow for disembarkation due to strong winds, Spain’s Health Minister Mónica García said. The Canary Islands regional government had previously insisted that the Hondius not be allowed to dock, as it was concerned that mice carrying the hantavirus might reach land.
Shortly after the last disembarkations, the Hondius set sail with a skeleton crew to head for Rotterdam, where it will be disinfected.
A passenger jet initially took off from Tenerife South Airport, carrying 22 Hondius crew members of various nationalities, García said.
The second aircraft was a smaller medical plane, which García said was to transport four Australians, one New Zealander and one Briton. This aircraft was also initially scheduled to fly to Eindhoven.
Specialists were waiting at Eindhoven Airport to medically examine the evacuees.
A total of 122 people were brought ashore from the ship since Sunday, and flown to their home countries where quarantines awaited. García thanked everyone involved and expressed “pride” that Spain had been able to carry out such a complex and “unique” operation.
The Hondius is expected to arrive in Rotterdam in a few days. Also on board along with the remaining crew is the body of a German national who died at sea on May 3.
Two other passengers, an elderly Dutch couple, also died amid the outbreak.
The World Health Organization (WHO) suspects that the chain of infection originated with the Dutch couple, who may have caught the Andes variant of the virus in Argentina before boarding the ship.
Like all hantaviruses, it is usually transmitted by rodents, but the Andes virus is the only hantavirus that can also be transmitted from person to person. There have been only a few recorded outbreaks in South America over the past few decades, all of which subsided quickly.
Experts see no risk of the pathogen spreading widely, unlike the SARS-CoV-2 virus behind the Covid-19 pandemic. Lars Schaade, director of Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) told broadcaster ZDF on Sunday: “This is a completely different virus, and the danger is in no way comparable.”
Cases reported in France, United States and Spain
In France, Health Minister Stéphanie Rist confirmed on Monday that a woman tested positive for the hantavirus after being evacuated from the ship.
Rist said the woman’s condition had deteriorated overnight. Tests on the other four French evacuees have so far returned negative, although further testing is planned, she said. All five are being kept in isolation in specially equipped hospital rooms.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, two of the 17 US nationals repatriated on government-organized flights travelled in a dedicated biocontainment unit.
One passenger tested “mildly” positive for hantavirus, while another was showing mild symptoms, the agency said in a post on X.
García announced later on Monday that one of the 14 Spanish passengers had tested positive for the virus while in quarantine in Madrid.
“The person is in isolation, asymptomatic, and doing well,” the Spanish minister wrote on X, adding that the PCR tests of the 13 other Spaniards had come back negative.
RTVE reported that further tests are being conducted to confirm the results. Spain has ordered the 14 individuals to remain in isolation for up to 42 days starting May 6.
Captain pays tribute
The captain of the Hondius paid tribute on Monday to the crew and passengers for their “patience, discipline and friendliness” during the ordeal in the Atlantic.
“These past few weeks have been extremely challenging to us all,” Jan Dobrogowski said in a video message published by the cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions.
“I’ve witnessed your caring, your unity and your quiet strength,” Dobrogowski said addressing all aboard. The experience showed that people can rely on each other even where aid is not immediately available, he said.
GNA