8-23 | “This emergency is huge - I’ve never seen anything like it”
8-22 | Cholera is on the increase on both sides of the border between Sierra Leone and Guinea, in West Africa, aided by the onset of the rainy season. More than 13,000 people have been admitted to hospital in the capital cities of Freetown and Conakry since February, when the disease was declared an epidemic. MSF is opening additional rehydration points and cholera treatment centres, in collaboration with local authorities, and currently has more than 800 beds available to treat cholera patients.
8-20 |
The distressing daily experience of the MSF team in Batil refugee camp is echoed in the just-released results of a nutrition and retrospective mortality survey conducted in the camp at the end of July. Tragically, some of the refugees whose family members had died before they reached Batil camp cited “tired of walking” as the cause of death. This suggests an incredibly weak and vulnerable population arriving at the camp, and points to the massive need for assistance to those that managed to arrive alive, but weak.