Reinforcing the primary health care services and improving the capacity of the population to maintain its own health status

Location: Deribat and Nyala

Situation:

Darfur, in West Sudan faces a situation of conflict since April 2003. The ensuing humanitarian emergency in Darfur is affecting today more than 3.5 million people, including more than 2 million Internally Displaced persons (IDPs) and approximately 220,000 refugees in eastern Chad and more than 200,000 dead. In this context, humanitarian interventions have suffered from many logistics and security constraints.
The medical situation is also quite specific as a number of dedicated medical staff has continued their work in the health district that was set up in 1997 by UNICEF. Being cut-off from any distribution of drugs and having only limited commercial traffic in and out of the valleys, drugs are generally not available or quite expensive in the commercial dispenser stores.
Main pathologies are: Diarrhoea, Malnutrition, Maternal and infant-related morbid-mortality, Malaria, Acute Respiratory Infections. Pregnant women, young mothers and their newborn infants’ situation is a medical priority. Having been identified a problem for Darfur in general; the referral options in these valleys are virtually non existent.

Activities:

•    Reinforce primary health care services for the population, covered by six health care centres: 2 clinics and 4 health’s post (respectively Deribat, Jawa, Suni, Dera, Keba, Soro) with focus on:

- Improving maternal and children health
- Improving the nutritional state of children under 5, by curing severe malnourish children
- Preventing and treating common pathologies
- Supporting transfer to second level of care when needed
- Surveillance of pathologies that could lead to epidemics

•    Implement a global and integrated evaluation of population needs and a protection chapter on the question of human rights.

Outlook:

The objective of the project is to participate to the improvement of the health care status in Deribat region and to the improvement of the capacity of the population to maintain its own health status.

Start date: February 2008

End date: December 2008 with possibilities of becoming a long term project