Malnutrition, respiratory disease reported in remote northeast

The Ministry of Health of the Central African Republic is consulting its emergency operations partners after numerous cases of malnutrition and acute respiratory infections were detected near the town of Birao, some 1,100 km northeast of the capital, Bangui, a ministry official told IRIN on Monday. The ministry’s director of preventive medicine and disease control, Dr Abel Namssenmo, said that 73 children had died of malnutrition and respiratory infection between May and August in the village of Boromata, about 60 km west of Birao. Boromata has about 2,000 people. Namssenmo said that in May an immunisation team had mistaken the first cases for whooping cough. He said that a lack of hygiene was the cause of the infections, which in turn led to malnutrition. He also said that the infections proliferated mainly because the single health centre serving the village had not been functioning for months, as the medical assistant was sick. He warned that other remote villages might be facing the same situation. Boromata is in a zone that has been benefiting from medicines distributed by an Italian NGO, Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), since May. A COOPI administrator in Birao, Paolo Lozzi, told IRIN on Monday that floods were hindering efforts to reach Boromata. "In some places one has to swim," he said. The option under consideration is to fly medical personnel to the region. Like other health facilities in the east, Boromata Health Centre received no drugs during the six-month rebellion that ended on 15 March with Francois Bozize overthrowing President Ange-Felix Patasse.