Health report

A convoy of medical supplies and health workers from the Spanish NGO, Medicos Solidarios de Cataluña, arrived in Bissau on 14 January. The “III Convoy Humanitario a Africa Occidental - Dakar 2000”, which left Barcelona the first week of January, was organized to coincide with the Dakar-Cairo motor rally. The convoy brought medical supplies to Mauritania, Senegal, and The Gambia before arriving in Guinea-Bissau, where it donated equipment to the hospital in Bissau, Bubaque (an island on the Bijagos archipelago) and a health clinic in Ingore, some 60 km north of Bissau. The Coopération Française donated medicines worth 60 million CFA francs (approx. US $92,000) to the Ministry of Health on 29 December 1999. The medicine is to be distributed to hospitals and health centres throughout the country. Yet, there remains concern at the lack of distribution of medicines to the interior of the country. According to the Director of Pharmacies, no distribution to the interior has been carried out since June 1999. Italian NGO Gruppo di Volontariato Civile (GVC) is supporting nutritional and health centres in Gabu, about 150 km east of Bissau. Another Italian NGO, Comunitá de Santo Egidio is to begin rehabilitation of the Raoul Follereau tuberculosis hospital, in Bissau. However, the area must first be certified free of unexploded ordnance before work begins. For its part, UNICEF has received emergency project funds to restore the water supply and sanitation systems of the Simão Mendes Hospital in Bissau.