Cameroon

Cholera has now spread to all districts of Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, home to 2.1 million people. 

In early June, world leaders and global health officials gathered at the United Nations for a summit meeting on HIV/AIDS. Among the outcomes was a new treatment target, a plan to get 15 million people living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the year 2015.

MSF has been treating hundreds of patients at its cholera treatment center (CTC) in Cameroon’s capital city of Yaoundé since March 31.

MSF has set up treatment centers in response to cholera outbreaks in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.

After 20 years, MSF handed over the two hospitals it has been running in Liberia to the country's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

During the week of January 27, reports surfaced of rebel forces advancing on the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, to oust the president. In preparation, MSF quickly transferred its surgical staff.

While many people have already returned to N'Djamena, further aid is reaching the thousands of refugees that still remain in the border town of Kousseri, in Cameroon. This week, MSF carried out a measles vaccination campaign and distributed relief items to thousands of people at two sites. MSF continues to offer free medical care to refugees and two surgical teams are still working in Kousseri and N'Djamena.

One week after the fighting ended, things are slowly getting back to normal in N'Djamena. The streets are starting to fill again, even if many shops in the town center remain closed. In the hospitals too, the worst of the crisis has passed. While a good number of people have returned to N'Djamena, thousands of families do not yet dare to go home, and continue to survive in precarious conditions across the border in Cameroon.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to provide medical assistance to civilians affected by recent fighting in N'Djamena, Chad's capital city, as well as to refugees who have fled the combat to Cameroon, and displaced populations in the east of the country.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to provide medical assistance to civilians affected by recent fighting in N'Djamena, Chad's capital city, as well as refugees who have fled the combat to Cameroon, and displaced populations in the east of the country.

MSF treated 70 wounded in N'Djamena, the Chad capital, over the weekend, but many hundreds of other wounded are reported to be in other hospitals in the city. Over the weekend, access to hospitals was limited due to the ongoing fighting. MSF has been unable to access the other hospitals as the roads are blocked by the masses of people fleeing from the city.

Pierre is a patient at the MSF/PRESICA HIV clinic in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. Since January 2001, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been running a pilot project providing antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to people living with AIDS. Pierre is one of the lucky few to receive this treatment, and he is beating the odds.