After more than two years without humanitarian access to Mingala, MSF has finished a two-day vaccination programme in the town. The area is difficult to access due to insecurity caused by the conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR), in addition to bad road conditions.
When the team arrived in the town, a large crowd gathered around the MSF vehicles. Women and children lined up, waiting patiently. A few metres away, the elders sat under a mango tree in the shade, awaiting the start of consultations.
During the ongoing conflict, the south-eastern part of the Central African Republic, where Mingala is located, has become even more isolated. Armed groups still maintain checkpoints on the roads, which have become more difficult to pass.
"We travelled through ghost towns which have been burned down and whose populations were living in the jungle for fear of being attacked," recalls the coordinator of the MSF project. At the entrance to Mingala, adults welcomed the team and a few children ran away in fear because they had not seen a vehicle in years.
MSF medical teams were able to vaccinate 956 children and 760 women of childbearing age over the two days and distribute more than 1,610 mosquito nets to fight malaria.
Essential vaccines
Since 2013, successive peaks of violence in CAR have undermined a health system that was already very precarious, and have deprived people of access to the most basic health care. Many children and pregnant women have not been vaccinated regularly.
For this first phase of vaccination in Mingala, MSF has administered vaccines against polio, measles, pneumococcus - which causes many respiratory infections - and yellow fever. Teams also administered the 5-in-1 vaccine that simultaneously protects against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b (which can cause meningitis, amongst other things).
At the same time that the nurses vaccinated the children, a few meters away a midwife saw pregnant women, whilst another nurse treated patients with fever and carried out tests for malaria. “Several ill people have approached us, because they thought that we could attend to everybody. We worked to stabilise the most urgent cases ", explains the coordinator. Although some Ministry of Health staff remain in Mingala, the only health centre in the town was destroyed and looted in an attack. Without medical supplies or equipment, this health centre remains a shadow of its former self. "During malaria season and after an episode of haemorrhagic fever, I saw more than 10 deaths in children under five years old per week," says the head nurse of the health centre.
At the end of 2018, MSF launched a six-month emergency response to meet the medical needs of the population of the Mingala and nearby Alindao health districts, but only been until recently were the teams able to reach the latter population. "I hope that other humanitarian organisations will also be able reach this area of the country, which has been totally deprived of health and other basic services," concludes Omar Ahmed Abenza, MSF Head of Mission in CAR.