René Ghislain Essomba

Abstract Cholera has re-emerged as a major global public health emergency, with reported cases and deaths tripling between 2022 and 2025 especially in Africa, due to climate shocks, population displacement, fragile water and sanitation systems, and delays in laboratory confirmation. Early detection is critical to interrupt transmission and reduce mortality, underscoring the need for decentralised point-of-care diagnostics.

1 INTRODUCTION Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was first reported in China at the end of 2019. The highly contagious virus quickly reached pandemic proportions, and by the end of February 2023, over 757 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide.1 The first case of COVID-19 in Cameroon was diagnosed on 6 March 2020. Cases started to rise rapidly country-wide and by March 17, 2020.