Launch of sleeping sickness program
International staff: 11
National staff: 25
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The landlocked and sparsely populated Central African
Republic experienced an attempted coup in May 2001 and continues
to suffer both political and economic instability.
Access to health care is becoming ever more restricted in this
country that already has one of the highest maternal mortality
rates in the world and is ranked third in declared cases
of sleeping sickness.
In October 2001, MSF started a sleeping sickness program
in Haut-Mbomou prefecture in the southeast of the
country, one of the areas worst hit by this re-emerging
disease that hits mainly rural populations already affected
by malaria and meningitis. Sleeping sickness is a parasitic
infection transmitted by the tsetse fly that causes
irreversible neurological damage and is lethal if untreated.
MSF provides treatment and trains local staff. While constrained
to use the toxic and sometimes deadly arsenicderivative
melarsoprol as standard treatment, MSF gained
authorization to introduce the newer, less toxic drug
eflornithine on a pilot basis for advanced cases.
MSF is running a maternal health program in the capital
Bangui, covering pre- and postnatal care, vaccinations,
family planning, resource management and training for
local staff in three maternity wards in the city.
Central African Republic is also host to refugees from the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, who receive barely
any health assistance because of the precarious state of the
country's infrastructure. MSF carried out an exploratory
mission in May 2002 to evaluate the situation of Sudanese
refugees settled in isolated border areas with no access to
health services, and provided them with basic medical care,
water and sanitation services, and non-food supplies.
MSF has been working in Central African Republic since
1997.
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