2024-02-01 08:11:51
Efforts to combat the outbreak of hepatitis E in South Sudan are facing difficulties due to floods that have isolated residents and turned villages into islands, according to a report published by the British newspaper The Guardian.
A pioneering vaccination campaign has begun to protect people from the outbreak of the epidemic, but the true extent of the spread of the disease is unknown.
Health workers from the non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders are making eight-hour boat trips to deliver vaccines to some affected villages in Fangak Province, in the north of the country.
After its victory over “Virus C”… Egypt seeks to eliminate the disease in Africa
On October 9, the World Health Organization announced that Egypt had become the first country to reach the “gold level” on the path to eliminating “hepatitis C” disease, known as “virus C,” according to the organization’s standards, after an official campaign that began in the early millennium and reached its peak. The Egyptian government launched a national campaign to eliminate the disease in 2014.
But Egypt did not stop there, according to a report by the American newspaper “The New York Times”, but rather began to help the rest of the countries of the African continent get rid of the disease, by sending medical aid to treat the disease.
Doctors Without Borders said that it had learned of the death of 21 people and had treated more than 500 people with hepatitis in the past nine months, but the majority of people in the region were deprived of health care.
This is the first time that a vaccination campaign has been attempted during the acute phase of the hepatitis E outbreak, despite the presence of a logistical problem represented by the difficulty of shipping vaccines from China, where they are produced.
This type of hepatitis is spread through contaminated water, has no cure, and is potentially fatal to pregnant women.
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Under the slogan “One Life, One Liver,” this year’s World Hepatitis Day highlights the importance of the liver for a healthy life, and the need to expand its prevention, testing and treatment to improve liver health, prevent diseases that can affect it, and achieve the goals of eliminating it. Year 2030.
Although rare in the developed world, it affects more than 20 million people annually who lack adequate sanitation in poor countries.
Doctors Without Borders seeks to provide vaccines to 12,000 women in Fangak District, between the ages of 16 and 45, by June, but it faces major challenges.
“Fangak County is located in a very remote area in the north of South Sudan, a vast expanse of wetlands dotted with small communities, where people do not have access to even the most basic healthcare services,” said Maman Mustafa, from Doctors Without Borders.
“Even getting routine vaccinations to children in Fangak is a challenge, as the hospital can only be reached by boat or plane,” he continued.
Repeated floods in Fangak, Jonglei State, have submerged much of the countryside and exacerbated malaria rates, as mosquitoes spread in stagnant floodwaters.
Damage to crops and livestock also contributed to child malnutrition, rates of which were higher in Jonglei State than elsewhere in South Sudan.
Mustafa said the true scale of the hepatitis E problem, which kills 70,000 people – mostly women – every year, is unknown in the Fangak region.
He continued: “We know for sure that 21 people died from hepatitis E during the current outbreak, but that is only because they were able to get to hospital. It is very likely that many more people died in their homes, without even being able to From trying to get treatment.
Doctors Without Borders explained that the high costs of vaccines constitute an obstacle to vaccination on a larger scale.
The World Health Organization recommended the use of the hepatitis E vaccine in 2015, but it has only been used once in the Bentiu displacement camp in South Sudan in 2022.
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