Nigeria

On Monday, October 12, MSF teams received patients reportedly injured in a demonstration against the demolition of the Bundu-Ama waterfront area in Port Harcourt.

During the last four months, MSF teams in cooperation with the national health officials have been moving quickly, following the epidemic trend, to help treat tens of thousands of patients and to proceed swiftly on a massive vaccination campaign for 7.5 million people.

This year’s meningitis outbreak in northern Nigeria has already led to the deaths of over 1,500 people. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), in cooperation with the Nigerian Ministry of Health, is carrying out a mass vaccination campaign as well as undertaking the very important task of treating the patients who are suffering from the disease.

More than 1,900 people affected by meningitis have died since the beginning of this year in an area of sub-Saharan Africa known as the meningitis belt. In Nigeria, Niger and Chad alone, MSF medical teams have treated more than 56,000 sick patients. The organization is currently vaccinating a total population of more than seven million in the three countries, the biggest vaccination campaign MSF has ever carried out.

Several countries in West Africa are facing a major meningitis epidemic. In Nigeria, this is the worst meningitis epidemic the country has experienced since 1996.

Meningitis, a disease responsible for thousands of deaths in Africa, is currently spreading in several West African countries. While ensuring quick access to treatment for those already infected, MSF is also starting mass vaccination campaigns in Nigeria and Niger and is closely following the situation in other countries in the region. MSF is planning to vaccinate between 4 million and 5 million people against meningitis.

Following the post-electoral riots in Jos, Plateau State, where 300 people were reported killed, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) conducted an exploratory assessment and provided assistance to hospitals and clinics.

Bradley Burlingham, a member of the MSF team in Nigeria, died in a tragic accident just as he was beginning his first assignment with MSF. MSF’s deepest sympathies are with Brad’s family during this very painful time.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been managing this 70-bed trauma center since October 2005. Port Harcourt is located in the heart of Nigeria's densely populated, oil-rich Niger Delta region, where the struggle to gain power and control natural resources has sparked sporadic and deadly outbreaks of violence among a fragmented network of armed groups. Michael Mills, field coordinator for MSF in Port Harcourt, and Dr. Julie Wynne, a surgeon working in Teme hospital, talk about the recent upsurge of violence.

With the Nigerian government filing a lawsuit against the U.S. drug company, Pfizer, for clinical trials it conducted during the 1996 meningitis epidemic in Nigeria, Dr. Jean-Hervé Bradol, president of the French section of Médecins Sans Frontières, reviews MSF’s work in Nigeria that year. He emphasizes the need for more clinical research that addresses the lack of treatment options for people in Africa.

In Nigeria's densely populated, oil-rich Niger Delta region, the struggle to control power and natural resources has sparked sporadic and deadly outbreaks of violence among a fragmented network of political and criminal armed groups. The overall lack of functioning and accessible emergency medical services in the region prompted MSF to open a trauma center in October 2005 at the 70-bed Teme Hospital in Port Harcourt, the bustling capital city of Rivers state.

From July 2005 to January 2006, medical teams from MSF treated nearly 13,000 severely malnourished children at one stabilization center and 12 outpatient therapeutic feeding sites in the northern Nigerian state of Katsina.

It is with great sadness that Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) learned of the death of two of its aid workers in the airline crash which occurred in Nigeria on Saturday December 10, 2005. Hawah Kamara, 49 years of age, and Thomas Lamy, 30 years of age, were two of the passengers who perished in the crash. They had left the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to go to Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria, where MSF has a surgical program.

Following an outbreak of measles in Borno state, northern Nigeria, in March 2005, MSF conducted an emergency intervention. While the number of measles cases decreased, the nutritional status in the area was found to be of great concern, notably among small children.