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MSF starts therapeutic feeding and fights measles epidemic in Chadian capital
MSF’s massive vaccination campaign started on 11 May and aims to immunise about 280,000 children through 29 mobile vaccination sites opened in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Chad. The transport and storage of the 300,000 vaccine doses needed for the campaign has huge logistical challenges. Vaccines are sensitive products which lose their potency when exposed to heat, a real problem in N’Djamena where temperatures easily reach 40 degrees. The success of the immunisation campaign depends largely on the quality of the “cold chain”, the combination of measures to keep the vaccines between +2° and +8°C at all times. “You don’t freeze a thousand ice packs in a few minutes,” explains Valentin Omari Sefu, logistical coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières in N’Djamena. “It usually takes a week to organise such a massive campaign, but we managed to do it in three days by bringing back frozen packs and two freezers from Bousso. It’s a terrible ten hours journey and we almost got stuck twice.”
Measles is also an aggravating factor for malnutrition. Therefore, MSF is also undertaking nutritional screening. The first results indicate high numbers of cases of severe malnutrition and three therapeutic feeding centres have been opened under the supervision of a nutritional medical nurse. As the number of infections keeps growing, MSF is also providing medical support and drugs to 17 health centres for the less severe cases. The most severely infected patients are referred to the Union and Sultan Kasser Hospital, where MSF specialists assist the resident staff in treating the concomitant infections, such as pneumonia. While MSF is endeavouring to take control of the epidemic in the capital, new measles cases have been reported from two southern districts, Salamat and Moyen Chari, more then 600 km away from N’Djamena. Assessment teams are on their way to evaluate the situation.
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