Malaria spreading, health care deteriorating in Darfur

Displaced people in Darfur complain about the spread of malaria, deterioration of health services, and soaring prices of medicines.

“There is not a family here in Murnei camp without a member infected with malaria,” the coordinator of the Murnei camps in told Radio Dabanga. “The people have to be taken over a distance to the hospital of Murnei, as there are no health centres in the camps anymore.”

The only health clinic in Bindisi camp in Central Darfur is serving about 21,000 displaced people. A camp sheikh said that the clinic is overcrowded with patients.

No health centre

“The people, many suffering from malaria, have to wait for long hours to see a doctor. In addition, the price of medicines lie beyond the capacity of the displaced,” he said, and appealed to humanitarian organisations and the authorities to provide medicines and health staff.

The displaced living in the Aradeiba, Jedda, and El Jebelein camps in Central Darfur’s Garsila also complain about the spread of malaria. The Central Darfur camps coordinator El Shafee Abdallah told Radio Dabanga that the three camps all lack a health centre.

“Therefore dozens of patients, those who can afford it, are leaving the camps to go to Garsila Hospital. There they have to pay SDG20 ($3.25) for the medical examination. They then have to buy imported medicines for exorbitant prices.”

The camp coordinator called on the authorities “to provide affordable treatment and medicines, and access for the displaced to a form of health insurance”.

Sortony

The residents of the newly established Sortony camp in North Darfur’s Kabkabiya locality, complain of poor health care and educational conditions in the camp. The people in the camp all fled the fighting between government forces and rebel combatants in Jebel Marra earlier this year.

“Sortony camp is short of drinking water, medicines, health centres, and schools,” a camp resident told Radio Dabanga. “The classrooms are overcrowded and the teachers have not received their salaries so far.”

The Federal Ministry of Health announced it expects malaria to increase significantly during the end of the rainy season this September. The Ministry advised the people to use mosquito nets as “a first weapon to fight malaria”, and to use preventive medication.