Burkina Faso

People displaced by conflict are fleeing Mali en masse—and settling in places already weakened by food insecurity.

Refugees from the West African country of Mali face insufficient levels of assistance in camps rife with disease and malnutrition where the looming rainy season will further complicate the deployment of aid. 

This update details MSF's recent activities in Africa's Sahel region, where widespread malnutrition and water shortages are exacerbating the outbreaks of diseases like meningitis.

Access to food, water, and basic shelter continues to deteriorate for refugees from Mali in makeshift camps in a desert region of Burkina Faso. 

MSF is assisting Malian refugees driven from their homes by conflict and now seeking shelter in northern Burkina Faso, an area already struggling with resource shortages.

Throughout the summer, waves of Somalis set out on desperate, arduous journeys, braving desert heat, hunger, and bandits to seek relief from a catastrophe remarkable even by the standards of this long-troubled country.

In December, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) will support the national Ministries of Health of Niger and Mali to carry out meningitis vaccination campaigns using a new, low-cost, longer-lasting vaccine. This vaccine, which was recently endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a major improvement over older meningitis vaccines and has the potential to save thousands of lives each year.

The Meningitis Vaccine Project was launched in 2001 with the main goal of creating an affordable vaccine that would respond to a specific meningitis strain that plagues Africa each year.

"With the extended protection offered by this vaccine, we can hopefully prevent the epidemics from taking place at all."

About 10 inches of rain, roughly a quarter of the average annual rainfall, fell on Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital, over 12 hours on September 1. The downpour created floods that destroyed more than 24,000 homes and displaced about 150,000 people—one in 10 of the country’s inhabitants.

More than 23,440 children have been treated, and 88 percent cured since MSF launched a nutrition program in Burkina Faso in September 2007. The majority of patients were treated with nutrient-rich, therapeutic ready-to-use food (RUF).

MSF has been quick to respond to meningitis epidemics in several countries in Africa's "meningitis belt." In the four countries–Burkina Faso, Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC-where the epidemic threshold has been reached MSF's first response was to evaluate the outbreak, identify the strain of meningitis, and treat people infected with the disease.

New York, Ouagadougou, March 23, 2007 – The meningitis epidemic that emerged in Burkina Faso at the end of February continues to spread. The most recent statistics issued by the health authorities in mid March show 801 deaths and 10,796 suspected cases since the beginning of the year. While two-thirds of the country is in an epidemic phase or on alert, the capital, Ouagadougou, is affected. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), already assisting hospitalized patients in the capital, is now stepping up its response. A cargo plane carrying vaccines for 540,000 people arrived on Saturday, March 17 with the necessary cold chain equipment, and MSF meningitis specialists are present in the county.

West African countries, including Liberia, Guinea, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau, and Burkina Faso, are facing a particularly bad cholera outbreak this year. In most countries, a large number of patients come from the capital cities. MSF, already active in fighting cholera across the region, has sent in more staff and supplies in response to the outbreaks.