Provincial drug supply centre inaugurated in northwest

A 20 million-franc CFA (US $39,000) provincial drug supply centre has been inaugurated in the Central African Republic (CAR) town of Bossembele, 157 km northwest of the capital, Bangui, according to state-owned Radio Centrafrique. The radio quoted Bossembele Mayor Jean Pierre Longote on Thursday as saying that although the centre was a relief for health clinics in Ombella Mpoko Province; the central facility was still without a generator and water tank. In addition, he said, medical staff had no accommodation. Health Minister Nestor Nali, who inaugurated the facility, announced that similar centres would be opened in the 15 provinces of the country. The UN Development Programme, the Roman Catholic Nuns of the Saint Paul de Chartre Congregation and the Bossembele Health Centre, paid for construction of the Bossembele centre. Bossembele residents contributed building materials and free labour. The northwestern section of Ombella Mpoko together with the northwestern provinces of Ouham, Ouham Pende, Kemo and Nana Grebizi were badly affected by the armed rebellion that engulfed these areas from October 2002 to March 2003. Bossembele, which had changed hands several times during the fighting, had its health facilities, schools and other public and private properties looted, vandalized or destroyed. Despite the resumption of medical services in mid-2003, there have been measles and polio outbreaks in the areas because residents there have not been covered by immunisation drives for over one year. In January, the government authorised a six-month extension of the medical programme in the northwest supported by the EC Humanitarian Office and implemented by the Italian charity, Cooperazione Internazionale.