Noma is a little understood, rapidly progressing gangrenous infection of the mouth and face, associated with a high mortality rate. This preventable disease eats away rapidly tissue, leaving survivors with holes and facial disfigurements that cause them life-threatening impairments and provokes a social stigma. Their only choice to have a better life is to undergo extensive reconstructive surgery. But for most of them, living in remote areas, surgery is an option they’ve never heard about. Those who manage to arrive in Sokoto Noma Hospital meet other people with noma for the first time and discover a place to find hope.
'Facing noma' is a short version of the documentary 'Restoring Dignity’, filmed between October 2016 and November 2017 in Sokoto Noma Hospital in Nigeria, produced by the French production company Inediz, in collaboration with MSF. The film follows the journey of noma survivors from different regions across Nigeria over the course of a year. Some of them are children, like little Sakina, some are teenagers like Amina, and others are adults who have lived for decades with the terrible physical and psychological consequences of this disease, like Mulikat.
Since 2014, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) supports the Noma Children Hospital in Sokoto, northwest Nigeria, the only fully dedicated to Noma hospital in the world. The programme, run in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, focuses on community outreach, active case finding in the region, health promotion, mental health support and surgery. Four times per year, MSF sends high profile plastic and maxillofacial surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists to perform surgeries on the patients with Noma. In 2018, our teams performed 150 surgeries on 117 patients, as well as providing mental healthcare services and community outreach, surveillance, awareness-raising and health promotion.
For more information visit noma.msf.org.