3-20 | Hepatitis E is spreading through refugee camps in eastern Chad where more than 550,000 Sudanese fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Sudan have taken shelter, warns international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) today. The spread of hepatitis E is being exacerbated by poor sanitation and a desperate shortage of clean water in the camps, which are scattered across Chad’s Ouaddai province.
3-20 | In the midst of a global cholera pandemic, that started in 1961 and has not yet ended, thousands of people remain at risk of illness and death from an entirely preventable disease.With a massive global oral cholera vaccine shortage, equating to demand exceeding up to four times global production capacity for the past two years, there is an urgent need for affected countries to adapt their existing approaches for responding to outbreaks.
1-25 | A retrospective mortality survey carried out among Sudanese refugees in Chad by Epicentre, Médecins Sans Frontières’ medical research and epidemiology centre, documents the appalling scale of the wave of violence that swept through the region last June, while atrocities have continued in recent months in the region of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.
12-20 | Three years into its campaign to have noma recognised as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), Médecins Sans Frontières welcomes the decision by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), to include noma in the WHO’s official list of NTDs.
11-13 | Following increased fighting in El Geneina in Sudan’s West Darfur, Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams operating across the border in eastern Chad have seen an immediate and major increase in the number of people arriving in the region. 36 wounded people were received by MSF teams over the past weekend alone. Refugees coming from Sudan are mainly women and children, and recount stories of large-scale violence against civilians.