“Our patients are not only South Sudanese refugees,” said Hailemariam, a doctor working in Kule health center emergency room. “We also provide services for the host community. Many work here for different aid organizations, as well as for Ethiopia’s organization for refugees. People also come from other refugee camps; it can take them up to four hours to get here. Most of the patients are children under five and pregnant women. We have a registration form on which we record where people come from – but specifically for medical purposes because at MSF we make no distinction in treating patients. I am also a stranger, I come from Addis, other colleagues are from Gambella, at MSF there are no borders.”
Abdurafi, Amhara region: Snakebite
Both snakebite envenoming and kala azar, the second deadliest parasitic disease in the world, are endemic in Ethiopia and are among the world’s most neglected diseases.
“We had just reopened our clinic in Abdurafi, when, three days later, a 12-year-old boy was brought to us in close-to-death condition from the hospital in Metema. He had suffered snakebite envenoming on his right foot in Abdu, the village where he lived 100 kilometres [about 60 miles] from Metema,” said Kassaye, MSF’s medical activity manager in Abdurafi.
“The doctors there were able to put him in an ambulance and send him to Abdurafi, the facility where, since 2015, MSF offers quality, free anti-venom treatment. He arrived in very poor condition. Even his brothers did not believe he would recover. He was vomiting blood, his pulse was barely discernible, he was in haemorrhagic shock and semiconscious.
“We didn’t waste time. We placed him on two drips, one with the anti-venom, the other with rehydration fluids. One hour later, he was still vomiting so we gave him a blood transfusion and more anti-venom. Two hours later, his blood pressure had recovered, but he was still bleeding so we gave him another dose of anti-venom. We tried everything. We used 12 vials of anti-venom to treat the child. It was truly amazing that the boy recovered.”