Niger

  MSF nurse Sedi Mbelani, stands inside the admission ward of the nutrition centre at the MSF-run Madaoua hospital, in southern Niger. Photo: MSF     Malnutrition is on the rise across the Sahel region of West Africa, a huge area that includes eight countries:Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. MSF has nutrition programmes in most of these countries, and is currently conducting numerous assessments as well as scaling up its nutrition programmes. Sedi Mbelani, originally from Congo Brazzaville but currently living in South Africa, recently returned from a 9-month contract as a nurse with MSF in Niger. Here she shares her experience...

Nearly 400,000 children and young adults have been recently vaccinated against meningococcal meningitis in Zinder, Maradi and Madaoua localities. MSF is supporting the Ministry of Health with the organisation and logistics of the vaccination campaign, which ran from the 13th to the 25th of April. MSF assisted the government with the logistical organisation of the campaign, which succeeded in vaccinating 300,000 children and young adults between the ages of 2 and 30 in Zinder, Maradi and Madaoua. Photo: Liane Cerminara /MSF The drastic rise in meningitis cases reported by the authorities in the regions of Zinder, Maradi and Tahoua resulted in the timely decision by the Ministry of Health to launch a mass vaccination campaign. An...

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and its local partners have treated 77,000 severely malnourished children in Niger this year and are distributing food supplements to 143,000 young children. To address a recurrent nutritional crisis, prevention is crucial. MSF has been treating malnutrition in Zinder region since 2005. Patients coming to MSF medical structures.Photo: Jean-François Herrera/MSF Niamey – Every year, the population of Niger is affected by a nutritional crisis that peaks between May and September. The scale of the crisis in 2010 is particularly worrying. More than 77,000 children with severe malnutrition have already been treated in the 69 nutritional...

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has set up treatment centres in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria after an outbreak of cholera occurred in a number of places in the whole region.   In early summer, a cholera outbreak appeared in four neighboring countries in Western Africa. Although cholera is endemic in the region, there have been far more cases than usual.   Cholera is a bacterial infection that leads to severe watery diarrhea and vomiting. Treatment is simple: the loss of fluids is compensated with a salt and sugar based rehydration therapy, administered either orally or by infusion.  “Due to rapid dehydration, cholera can lead to death within hours. It...