After a site visit with the Games’ chief medical officer, Dr Ibrahima Sy and the WHO say they are satisfied and state that “everything is ready”.

A few days before the opening of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games (YOG), the Minister of Health and Public Hygiene, Dr Ibrahima Sy, this morning visited the sites of the health arrangements, together with the medical team of the

YOG, the Armed Forces Health Service, the WHO and the Directorate General of Health Establishments. “Everything is ready,” he declared.

Surveillance, treatment, prevention

The arrangements rest on three pillars. At the airport, information forms make it possible to identify suspected cases, against a backdrop of the Ebola epidemic in Central Africa, and a medical emergency post has been set up nearby.

On treatment, the minister visited the Polyclinic and the Children’s Hospital in Diamniadio, the Abdoulaye Wade Stadium and the Olympic Swimming Pool. The Children’s Hospital serves as the referral centre, as the Oncology Hospital, originally planned for this role, is not sufficiently advanced.

Patients are referred in stages, from the competition sites to the hospitals, the International Polyclinic, the Clinique Madeleine and the Hmo.

The third pillar is prevention: the minister wants to use the event as an opportunity to raise awareness of “health reflexes” (hygiene, diet, water quality).

Resources and guarantees

Six hundred staff (medical, paramedical and support) and some thirty ambulances have been mobilised, and the ministry has invested around 1.5 billion CFA francs in medical equipment. The arrival of the delegations will serve as a full-scale test. The WHO representative in Senegal, Dr Michel Yao, congratulated the government: “The specifications have been met.” He stated that athletes coming from abroad can be reassured, as measures are in place both at the points of entry and within the country.

Medical Colonel Cheikh Ahmedou Lam, chief medical officer of the YOG, said that the arrangements are in place and that he is in the process of making them operational, in order to guarantee “quality care to international standards” for athletes, delegations and Senegalese spectators.

A legacy for the health system

For the minister, the YOG are “positive externalities”: they have made it possible to strengthen the technical facilities durably, partly thanks to external funding. Dr Yao hopes the experience will serve as a “learning laboratory” for future organisers, with Senegal hosting the first Olympic Games held in Africa.

latifmansaray@lequotidien.sn