Over the past four decades, our teams have responded to recurring humanitarian and health emergencies caused by conflict, climate-related events such as widespread flooding and recurring droughts, as well as outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, measles, and COVID-19.
Today, we continue to work in hospitals in Somalia and Somaliland, providing obstetric and paediatric care, in- and out-patient nutritional support, emergency services, and tuberculosis. Our teams also run mobile clinics providing basic healthcare in camps for internally displaced people and host communities.
We carry out vaccination campaigns and respond to nutritional crises where feasible. MSF also provides resources to conduct ‘eye camps’, which reach thousands of people with eye diseases.
A major part of our work involves specialised training for healthcare staff and capacity building, along with rehabilitating hospitals and expanding and improving the state of water, sanitation and hygiene services.
Data and information from the International Activity Report 2022.
In 2022, Somali communities in the Horn of Africa experienced an unrelenting drought, the worst in 40 years, with more than 1.3 million people displaced by the end of the year amid a conflict that has been going on for decades and recurrent disease outbreaks.
In Baidoa City in Southwest State, we ran 20 mobile nutrition clinics and 32 nutrition monitoring sites and referred severely malnourished children to the inpatient therapeutic feeding centre in Bay Regional Hospital.
Malnutrition in children was exacerbated by measles, an extremely infectious disease that can be fatal. Measles rates increased dramatically in the overcrowded camps and informal settlements in towns and cities where people had fled from violence or after they had run out of food and water in their villages. We treated children with measles in MSF-supported health facilities in Baidoa, Jubaland, Hargeisa and Las Anod.
In July, we partnered with Somaliland’s Ministry of Health Development to conduct a mass measles vaccination campaign, including for people in displacement camps and the surrounding communities.
In April, we responded to a cholera outbreak in Baidoa, setting up 15 oral rehydration points and a cholera treatment centre. To prevent the disease from spreading, we improved access to clean water by trucking it in, drilling boreholes and installing chlorine dispensers.
Our teams worked in hospitals across Somalia, focusing on maternal, paediatric and emergency care, nutrition support, and the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis (TB) and multidrug-resistant TB, as well as mental health care and health promotion. We also ran mobile clinics in remote areas, delivering care to people in displacement camps and the surrounding communities.
In partnership with a local medical organisation, we ran five ‘eye camps’ in several locations, conducting screening and surgical interventions for common eye conditions that cause blindness if left untreated and distributing medical eye-glasses.
IN 2022
