June 30, 1997
News for the Week of June 30, 1997

Sierra Leone

In the wake of the May 25 coup d'état in Sierra Leone, a 4-person MSF emergency medical team has carried out some 100 surgical operations since June 7 in Connaught Hospital in Freetown, the capital. In addition to performing surgery, MSF is providing drugs and medical material to six clinics and working to improve sanitary facilities in several displaced persons camps.

Congo-Brazzaville

The MSF team that had been working around Brazzaville, Congo Republic, arrived safely in Kinshasa, Congo (formerly Zaire), after an evacuation due to intensified fighting. The 9-person team was working in two refugee camps in the north of the country, Lokoulela, and Njudnu, which house nearly 10,000 Rwandan refugees who had trekked across Congo. The team will attempt to return as soon as security conditions permit.

AIDS in Moscow

On June 19, MSF launched a major initiative to prevent the spread of AIDS in Moscow. The HIV virus has spread rapidly in the Russian population in recent years, and in 1996, the number of people who tested positive for HIV exceeded the combined figure for the previous nine years. The MSF project consists of a mass-media advertising campaign aimed at young people; a program to decrease the risk of intravenous drug users posed by sharing needles; and an educational program aimed at health care workers.

© 2013 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)