Helping victims of infectious disease and violence
MSF is assisting patients suffering from infectious diseases, violence
and natural disasters in Indonesia. Malaria is a serious illness in various
parts of the country, made more serious because there is growing
resistance to existing drugs used to treat patients with it. MSF is treating
people with artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) and
promoting its use as first-line treatment for the disease.
From July to October 2003, ACT was used
in a malaria-treatment campaign that took
place in South Halmahera, North Maluku.
Over the course of 10 weeks, the MSF team
visited 89 villages and conducted 11,125
medical consultations.
The global HIV/AIDS epidemic has also
reached Indonesia, especially the province
of Papua. On 15 July 2003, an agreement
was signed between MSF and the Merauke
district health office to provide care and
treatment for HIV/AIDS patients. MSF
assists both inpatients and outpatients in
the district hospital. By July 2004, through
the outpatient clinic, MSF was caring for
70 patients, of whom 26 were receiving
antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.
In 2003, MSF started to carry out psychosocial
activities in Ambon to help residents
cope with violence and subsequent trauma
caused by religious conflict in the region.
In 2004, the team expanded its activities to
include individual counseling sessions, discussion
groups and training sessions. In
addition, in September 2003, MSF began a
short-term, community-based TB project to
support and monitor all patients receiving
treatment at two health centers.
In April 2004, violent clashes erupted in
Ambon between Muslims and Christians,
and the MSF office was burned down amid
the turmoil. MSF donated medicines and
medical material to the city's five main
hospitals and began to circulate mobile
clinics to assist people unable to reach
health services. MSF also undertook water
and sanitation activities in the areas of
most urgent need. The mental health
program was adapted to the conditions, with psychologists joining the mobile clinic
teams and doctors referring patients with
psychosomatic symptoms to the psychologist
for individual counseling. Two weeks
after the clashes had begun, MSF's local
TB-project supporters went back to their
respective communities and tracked down
the 105 patients MSF had been following.
They then resumed their home visits and
educational work aimed at adherence to
treatment.
Assisting earthquake survivors
On 6 February 2004, a powerful earthquake
shook the town of Nabire, Papua and its
surrounding region. MSF quickly responded
by sending a medical and logistical team,
along with 600 kilos of supplies. Over five
days, the medical team conducted medical
consultations in four villages near Nabire.
Responding to disease outbreaks
MSF's emergency-preparedness-system
project in Jayawijaya, in the province of
Papua, enabled MSF to respond to 28
disease outbreaks in 2003. After evaluating
and analyzing alternative ways to carry out
the project, MSF decided to end it in
December 2003.
In August 2004, after two years of activity,
MSF closed its project aimed at improving
access to basic health care services for
commercial sex workers in Indonesia's capital,
Jakarta. The organization will continue
to pay for ARV treatment for the 40
patients whom its team had been monitoring,
until another organization can be
found to assume their care.
MSF has worked in Indonesia since 1997.
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