Market sellers from 30 fear covid-19 contagion due to daily crowds

Located in the municipality of Viana, 30 kilometers from the center of Luanda, it is the largest open air supply market for various products and brings together thousands of people daily, including sellers and buyers.

Those who have their source of income in this market are mainly women, who fill a large part of this market for the sale of goods and services, and fear contagion by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes the covid-19 disease, because many of them occur. to the site without a face mask, mandatory.

The almost non-existent physical distance is also a concern for sellers who, even having taken the first dose of the vaccine against covid-19, say they are afraid, but trusting in God for remaining there in search of sustenance.

The small rain that falls on Luanda further affects the mobility of people inside the market, due to the mud and puddles of water in the already narrow streets, pushing sellers and buyers into permanent contact in search of a place, albeit narrow, to get to. move.

Already vaccinated, but without any protective mask, we find Celina Jaúca in the market, who has been selling clothes for ten years and regrets not having managed, since the early hours of the day, even a kwanza to buy a mask.

"I didn't bring the mask because I forgot it at home, and the vaccine card. I'm really afraid of contagion, but I still don't have enough money to buy a mask," she told Lusa.

Celina Jaúca says, however, that she is aware of the importance of the vaccine against covid-19, which "guarantees immunity in the body", and the mandatory use of a face mask, as well as a vaccine card and/or certificate, since 1 st November, particularly in closed spaces and public institutions.

Paula Isaac has turned a wheelbarrow into a mobile stand and there she exhibits various food products that she has been selling in that market, in the south of Luanda, for four years.

The 31-year-old saleswoman reported that she had already taken the first dose of the vaccine against covid-19, also admitting that she was "afraid of contagion" in that market because the disease "is invisible and you can't see who has it".

However, in her daily contact with clients, Paula Isaac does not require the presentation of the vaccination card or certificate, as they recently imposed on her when she accompanied her son to the hospital.
The importance of the vaccine against covid-19 was also highlighted by Natália Ngueve, a vegetable seller at Mercado do 30, who with the first dose already uses her face mask irregularly "for distraction" and still expresses "fears" of contagion .

"The disease is only God who has to take care of us and we are going to give everything into God's hands (...). Sometimes I wear a mask and other times I don't, just for distraction", said the shopkeeper, who said it is not mandatory to wear a mask. customers display the vaccination card.

Selling oil to support her children is an exercise that Esperança Arminda, 40, has been doing for seven years at that fair, where hundreds of buyers flock mainly in search of products from the countryside.

Esperança, who has already taken the first dose of the vaccine and guarantees that it is prevented, believes that despite the daily floods in the market, individual protection measures help to prevent contagion.

"We do have floods, but no contamination, because we are preventing it with the mask and we have already been vaccinated", she highlighted.

Health authorities installed a vaccination post against covid-19 in that market, which registers a large number of sellers, customers and people living in the surroundings, as Lusa found on the spot.

Angola has been experiencing, for over a year, a situation of public calamity aimed at containing the spread of covid-19 and has community circulation of new variants in the country's 18 provinces.

As of November 18, more than 8 million doses of vaccines had been administered against the disease.