Posts tagged Malaria

Battling a Fatal Wave of Malaria in DRC Two tiny caskets covered with fresh dirt lay sit in front of a house on the road connecting the towns of Dingila, the administrative center of the area, and Zobia. Jeanne, a young mother, stands by mutely. “She can’t speak—she is too sad,” explains a neighbor. “Her children died.” More than 18 people in this small village have died in five months. Most were children. Last year, no one died from malaria, which is endemic in the area. But since the beginning of 2012, unusually high rates of malaria and severe anemia—along with exceptionally high mortality rates—have been recorded in Ganga-Dingila. “People say they have never seen anything like this,” says Dr. Narcisse Wega, MSF’s emergency coordinator, who arrived in June to launch medical activities in the region. “Some parents have lost two or three children in just a few weeks.” A malaria outbreak has struck several regions of Orientale province in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In early June, MSF sent an emergency team into the Ganga-Dingila health region, where approximately 118,000 people live in isolated, hard-to-reach communities that lack access to medical care.Photo: DRC 2012 © Aurelie Lachant/MSF

Battling a Fatal Wave of Malaria in DRC

Two tiny caskets covered with fresh dirt lay sit in front of a house on the road connecting the towns of Dingila, the administrative center of the area, and Zobia. Jeanne, a young mother, stands by mutely. “She can’t speak—she is too sad,” explains a neighbor. “Her children died.”

More than 18 people in this small village have died in five months. Most were children. Last year, no one died from malaria, which is endemic in the area. But since the beginning of 2012, unusually high rates of malaria and severe anemia—along with exceptionally high mortality rates—have been recorded in Ganga-Dingila. “People say they have never seen anything like this,” says Dr. Narcisse Wega, MSF’s emergency coordinator, who arrived in June to launch medical activities in the region. “Some parents have lost two or three children in just a few weeks.”

A malaria outbreak has struck several regions of Orientale province in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In early June, MSF sent an emergency team into the Ganga-Dingila health region, where approximately 118,000 people live in isolated, hard-to-reach communities that lack access to medical care.

Photo: DRC 2012 © Aurelie Lachant/MSF

MSF Emergency Teams Treat Nearly 40,000 for Malaria in DRC’s Katanga Province After a four-month intervention during which MSF treated nearly 40,000 malaria patients, MSF has handed over its emergency malaria project in Kinkondja—a remote area in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—to the Congolese Ministry of Health (MoH). “During our short intervention, MSF treated almost 40,000 men, women, and children for malaria,” said Melanie Silbermann, MSF’s medical coordinator in Lubumbashi. “When we arrived, one in ten of our patients required immediate hospitalization. In the last weeks of our intervention, this was down to one in 100.”Photo: The crowded facility at MSF’s Kikondja malaria project. DRC 2012 © Francesco Di Donna

MSF Emergency Teams Treat Nearly 40,000 for Malaria in DRC’s Katanga Province

After a four-month intervention during which MSF treated nearly 40,000 malaria patients, MSF has handed over its emergency malaria project in Kinkondja—a remote area in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—to the Congolese Ministry of Health (MoH).

“During our short intervention, MSF treated almost 40,000 men, women, and children for malaria,” said Melanie Silbermann, MSF’s medical coordinator in Lubumbashi. “When we arrived, one in ten of our patients required immediate hospitalization. In the last weeks of our intervention, this was down to one in 100.”

Photo: The crowded facility at MSF’s Kikondja malaria project.
DRC 2012 © Francesco Di Donna

DNDi and New Drugs for Neglected Diseases Founded in 2003, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) brings together the academic, medical, public health, and pharmaceutical worlds to create effective drugs to treat neglected diseases like Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, and visceral leishmaniasis. DNDi has developed an innovative not-for-profit model for drug research and development that is patient-centered and based on needs rather than profits. in 2003 MSF brought together five prominent public sector research institutes—Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia, and France’s Pasteur Institute—and the UNDP/World Bank/World Health Organization’s Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases to create DNDi. In just seven years, under the leadership of former General Director of MSF in France, Dr. Bernard Pecoul, DNDi has introduced six new treatments: two treatments for drug-resistant malaria that have already reached 150 million people; the first new treatment in 25 years for the advanced stage of sleeping sickness; for visceral leishmaniasis, a new combination therapy for patients in Africa and a set of combination therapies for patients in South Asia; and a new child-adapted Chagas disease drug formulation. Photo: Screening for Chagas in Colombia. Colombia 2010 © Mads Nissen

DNDi and New Drugs for Neglected Diseases

Founded in 2003, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) brings together the academic, medical, public health, and pharmaceutical worlds to create effective drugs to treat neglected diseases like Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, and visceral leishmaniasis. DNDi has developed an innovative not-for-profit model for drug research and development that is patient-centered and based on needs rather than profits.

in 2003 MSF brought together five prominent public sector research institutes—Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia, and France’s Pasteur Institute—and the UNDP/World Bank/World Health Organization’s Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases to create DNDi.

In just seven years, under the leadership of former General Director of MSF in France, Dr. Bernard Pecoul, DNDi has introduced six new treatments: two treatments for drug-resistant malaria that have already reached 150 million people; the first new treatment in 25 years for the advanced stage of sleeping sickness; for visceral leishmaniasis, a new combination therapy for patients in Africa and a set of combination therapies for patients in South Asia; and a new child-adapted Chagas disease drug formulation.

Photo: Screening for Chagas in Colombia.
Colombia 2010 © Mads Nissen

It’s very good news that the Global Fund is re-opening for business. Now we can stop wasting time, which is the most precious resource in this fight against HIV, TB and malaria, because wasting time is wasting lives. The new funding window at the Global Fund needs to be opened as soon as possible, be as big as possible, and be open to all affected countries to support treatment scale-up. Now is not the time to be conservative and keep money in the bank that could go toward getting life-saving pills into peoples’ bodies.
Sharonann Lynch, HIV/AIDS Policy Advisor at the MSF Access Campaign, on the Global Fund resuming new health grants. Years of hard work, coupled with new scientific advances, bring hope that with proper funding we can push back the three diseases that kill millions every year.
By Foot, Bike, Car, or Canoe: Patient and Staff Stories of Malaria in DRC “My name is Zamukunda. I tested positive for malaria at the health center. This morning I delivered my first child, a boy who weighed 1.6 kg [3.5 pounds]. My labor began very late last night, which was a surprise because I was still far from my delivery date. I was in a lot of pain and was bleeding, which made me worry, so I left the house with my mother and we walked for two hours to reach this health center. My baby was born at two in the morning. He was not breathing very well and I was continuing to bleed so MSF decided to transfer us in their car from Kashuga to the main hospital in Mweso. We picked up another woman and her child who was very sick with malaria. The trip took only an hour since there has not been much rain. Now I am in the intensive care unit at the hospital with my baby, who is on oxygen. So far we are doing okay.” Zamukunda’s son was born at seven months. She did not know how malaria would affect her pregnancy or her baby. The high fevers caused by the disease can provoke contractions and lead to premature delivery. Zamukunda and her son are receiving treatment at MSF’s Mweso hospital.Photo: DRC 2012 © Sandra Smiley Patients receiving malaria treatment in an MSF-supported hospital in Katanga province.

By Foot, Bike, Car, or Canoe: Patient and Staff Stories of Malaria in DRC

“My name is Zamukunda. I tested positive for malaria at the health center. This morning I delivered my first child, a boy who weighed 1.6 kg [3.5 pounds]. My labor began very late last night, which was a surprise because I was still far from my delivery date. I was in a lot of pain and was bleeding, which made me worry, so I left the house with my mother and we walked for two hours to reach this health center.

My baby was born at two in the morning. He was not breathing very well and I was continuing to bleed so MSF decided to transfer us in their car from Kashuga to the main hospital in Mweso. We picked up another woman and her child who was very sick with malaria. The trip took only an hour since there has not been much rain. Now I am in the intensive care unit at the hospital with my baby, who is on oxygen. So far we are doing okay.”

Zamukunda’s son was born at seven months. She did not know how malaria would affect her pregnancy or her baby. The high fevers caused by the disease can provoke contractions and lead to premature delivery. Zamukunda and her son are receiving treatment at MSF’s Mweso hospital.

Photo: DRC 2012 © Sandra Smiley Patients receiving malaria treatment in an MSF-supported hospital in Katanga province.

MSF health workers are seeing a 250 percent increase in the number of patients with malaria over the last three years in Democratic Republic of Congo and are now responding to outbreaks in six provinces.

Pregnant With MalariaPatient: Zamukunda [name changed], 20 years old and pregnant, Mweso Hospital, North Kivu “My name is Zamukunda. I tested positive for malaria at the health center. This morning I delivered my first child, a boy who weighed 1.6 kg [3.5 pounds]. My labor began very late last night, which was a surprise because I was still far from my delivery date. I was in a lot of pain and was bleeding, which made me worry, so I left the house with my mother and we walked for two hours to reach this health center. My baby was born at two in the morning. He was not breathing very well and I was continuing to bleed so MSF decided to transfer us in their car from Kashuga to the main hospital in Mweso. We picked up another woman and her child who was very sick with malaria. The trip took only an hour since there has not been much rain. Now I am in the intensive care unit at the hospital with my baby, who is on oxygen. So far we are doing okay.”DRC 2012 © Sandra Smiley Patients receiving malaria treatment in an MSF-supported hospital in Katanga province.

Pregnant With Malaria

Patient: Zamukunda [name changed], 20 years old and pregnant, Mweso Hospital, North Kivu

“My name is Zamukunda. I tested positive for malaria at the health center. This morning I delivered my first child, a boy who weighed 1.6 kg [3.5 pounds]. My labor began very late last night, which was a surprise because I was still far from my delivery date. I was in a lot of pain and was bleeding, which made me worry, so I left the house with my mother and we walked for two hours to reach this health center.

My baby was born at two in the morning. He was not breathing very well and I was continuing to bleed so MSF decided to transfer us in their car from Kashuga to the main hospital in Mweso. We picked up another woman and her child who was very sick with malaria. The trip took only an hour since there has not been much rain. Now I am in the intensive care unit at the hospital with my baby, who is on oxygen. So far we are doing okay.”

DRC 2012 © Sandra Smiley
Patients receiving malaria treatment in an MSF-supported hospital in Katanga province.

MSF Blogs: 18-Month-Old Bahati’s Struggle to Survive Severe Malaria Time is everything—delay treatment and the parasites multiply unchecked and the child reaches a point of no return. Lejuif—the nurse on duty—and I started with the sickest looking child, 18-month-old Bahati. His feet were cold, signalling he was in shock. He didn’t respond when we rubbed him vigorously on his chest—he was in a coma—and his chest heaved up and down. He had severe respiratory distress. His hemoglobin, the measure of how much oxygen his red blood cells could carry, was very low. He needed an immediate blood transfusion. This post originally appeared on the Guardian’s (UK) “Poverty Matters” blog.DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum/MSF Like Bahati, three-year-old Jean Marc is being treated by MSF for severe malaria.

MSF Blogs: 18-Month-Old Bahati’s Struggle to Survive Severe Malaria

Time is everything—delay treatment and the parasites multiply unchecked and the child reaches a point of no return. Lejuif—the nurse on duty—and I started with the sickest looking child, 18-month-old Bahati. His feet were cold, signalling he was in shock. He didn’t respond when we rubbed him vigorously on his chest—he was in a coma—and his chest heaved up and down. He had severe respiratory distress. His hemoglobin, the measure of how much oxygen his red blood cells could carry, was very low. He needed an immediate blood transfusion.

This post originally appeared on the Guardian’s (UK) “Poverty Matters” blog.

DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum/MSF
Like Bahati, three-year-old Jean Marc is being treated by MSF for severe malaria.

This 20-month old boy was brought to the emergency room of MSF’s Niangara Hospital unresponsive and close to death. One of the first steps of treatment was to wrap him in a survival blanket to increase his body temperature. A particularly troubling aspect of the increase in malaria cases in DRC is the high number of severe cases requiring hospitalization and urgent blood transfusions due to malaria-induced anemia. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

This 20-month old boy was brought to the emergency room of MSF’s Niangara Hospital unresponsive and close to death. One of the first steps of treatment was to wrap him in a survival blanket to increase his body temperature. A particularly troubling aspect of the increase in malaria cases in DRC is the high number of severe cases requiring hospitalization and urgent blood transfusions due to malaria-induced anemia. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

After arriving by canoe in Ntondo, Equateur Province, DRC, an MSF nurse screens people for malaria. The response includes screening and treating patients, and referring severe cases to the nearest health facility. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

After arriving by canoe in Ntondo, Equateur Province, DRC, an MSF nurse screens people for malaria. The response includes screening and treating patients, and referring severe cases to the nearest health facility. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

As the sun went down and the ridges of the Mitumba mountains turned a smoke blue, a line of mothers sat quietly on a wooden bench in front of the nurses’ station in the pediatric tent. The children lying prostrate in their laps were new admissions, too weak to protest against the nurses, who wore miner’s headlamps to help search for a vein to place a drip.

Chris Bird, a former Reuters and Guardian reporter, put down his notepad and left more than 10 years of news reporting to study medicine with the intention of returning to the front lines where he can be hands-on saving lives and alleviating the kind of suffering he once wrote about.

Here he talks about18-month-old Bahati’s struggle to survive severe malaria.

A little girl’s finger is pricked in order to test her blood for malaria at Nambia Health Center in Haut-Uele Province. Her test result is negative, but her 15-month-old sister tests positive. The number of people treated for malaria in MSF projects in DRC has increased by 250% since 2009, with a sharp rise in the first 3 months of 2012. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

A little girl’s finger is pricked in order to test her blood for malaria at Nambia Health Center in Haut-Uele Province. Her test result is negative, but her 15-month-old sister tests positive. The number of people treated for malaria in MSF projects in DRC has increased by 250% since 2009, with a sharp rise in the first 3 months of 2012. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

A Potential Time Bomb of High Infection Rates and Drug Resistant Strains of Malaria On April 25, the annual World Malaria Day, many health organizations will highlight important gains in fighting this deadly disease that claims more than one million lives every year. But despite notable progress in innovation and investment, MSF continues to see continuously high rates of malaria in several African countries. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), MSF has observed infection rates above emergency thresholds in several zones over the last six months, which can be largely attributed to a dysfunctional surveillance system, the failure of the health system to respond to elevated levels of malaria, poor organization, and lack of diagnostic testing and drugs.DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum A mother and child in the pediatric ward of Niangara hospital.

A Potential Time Bomb of High Infection Rates and Drug Resistant Strains of Malaria

On April 25, the annual World Malaria Day, many health organizations will highlight important gains in fighting this deadly disease that claims more than one million lives every year. But despite notable progress in innovation and investment, MSF continues to see continuously high rates of malaria in several African countries. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), MSF has observed infection rates above emergency thresholds in several zones over the last six months, which can be largely attributed to a dysfunctional surveillance system, the failure of the health system to respond to elevated levels of malaria, poor organization, and lack of diagnostic testing and drugs.

DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum
A mother and child in the pediatric ward of Niangara hospital.

An MSF logistician and nurse take a canoe to the next village during an emergency malaria response in DRC. Most of the villages covered in the emergency response are isolated, only accessible by water or motorbike. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

An MSF logistician and nurse take a canoe to the next village during an emergency malaria response in DRC. Most of the villages covered in the emergency response are isolated, only accessible by water or motorbike. — in Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Photo: Robin Meldrum/MSF

An 8-month-old boy, held by a relative, recovers from malaria in the pediatric ward of the MSF-run Niangara Hospital in Haut-Uele Province. MSF staff in DRC have seen a marked increase in malaria cases in six provinces over the last months. Photo by Robin Meldrum/MSF

An 8-month-old boy, held by a relative, recovers from malaria in the pediatric ward of the MSF-run Niangara Hospital in Haut-Uele Province. MSF staff in DRC have seen a marked increase in malaria cases in six provinces over the last months.

Photo by Robin Meldrum/MSF