{"id":58523,"date":"2015-11-27T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T09:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/youngest-victims-of-the-health-crisis-in-central-african-republic\/"},"modified":"2015-11-27T11:55:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-27T09:55:00","slug":"youngest-victims-of-the-health-crisis-in-central-african-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/youngest-victims-of-the-health-crisis-in-central-african-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"Youngest victims of the health crisis in Central African Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <span dir=\"ltr\"><br \/>\n                                                    PREGNY-CHAMBESY, Switzerland, November 27, 2015\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212;<br \/>\n                                                <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was on my way home from the school when my bus came under fire,\u201d says 11-year-old Niatou Christy Judicael, who was injured in both legs on 4 November when his bus was shot at with automatic weapons. The recent flare in violence in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, has seen an increasing number of wounded children being admitted to Bangui PaediatricComplex, the country\u2019s only functioning health structure still providing specialized care for children.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are overwhelmed and often we have 2, even 3, children sharing a bed,\u201d explains Assaye Abel, acting director of the hospital.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWith just over 300 beds and only 15 medical doctors, the hospital provides free paediatric services including newborn care, vaccination, intensive care, malnutrition treatments and surgical interventions. Each day 250 patients are admitted to Bangui Paediatric Complex, with the majority suffering from malaria, diarrhoea or malnutrition.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cBecause of insecurity, health centres across Bangui are closed at night. All emergency cases come to our hospital while, in my unit, we have only half of the qualified personnel that we need,\u201d says Dr Nganda Bangue Marie-Collette, deputy head of the intensive care unit. \u201dWe see lots of children with severe malaria, meningitis and newborn infections\u201d.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nChildren at risk<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSince the beginning of 2014, Central African Republic has been facing recurrent crises that have heavily affected the already-weak health system. A WHO survey in 2014 found that 213 health facilities \u2013 1 in 4 of the country\u2019s facilities \u2013 are dysfunctional. Many others are only partially functional.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLack of health professionals, damaged health facilities and lack of equipment and medicines have left many people without access to basic health care.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAbout 139 children out of\u00a0 every 1000 live births die before their 5th birthday. In Central African Republic, there are only 250 medical doctors, that is 1 doctor per 20 000 people, almost 4 times less than the African average.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nIn 2014, only 41% of babies less than 12 months old completed their routine vaccination, resulting in repeated outbreaks of measles in different areas of the country.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nFunding gaps<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe same WHO survey found that only half of secondary health facilities are able to provide emergency trauma care and less than half of all health staff are community health workers without any consistent training.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cHalf of all functioning health facilities in the country are supported by a humanitarian partner, meaning that the health sector is extremely dependent on external funding,\u201d explains Dr Michel Yao, WHO Representative in Central African Republic. \u201cCurrent funding gaps may leave hundreds of thousands of people without health care.\u201d<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nDue to lack of resources and skills, WHO is filling the gap with 3 field offices and is planning 2 more. These teams have been crucial in detecting and responding to disease outbreaks. Since the beginning of the crisis, WHO has delivered more than 300 tonnes of medical supplies to health facilities and nongovernmental organizations in all parts of Central African Republic.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nHowever the funding gap is enormous. In 2015, health partners in Central African Republic appealed for US$ 63.2 million but, as of mid-November, less than half of these funds had been received.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cWHO was financially supporting the Bangui Paediatric Complex but we had to stop the project 6 months ago due to the lack of funding,\u201d says Dr Yao.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cOur government does what it can but we still need external support and we are thankful to all humanitarian organizations working with us,\u201d concludes Mr Abel of the Bangui Paediatric Complex, that is currently supported by Action Contre la Faim, Italian organization Emergency, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, UNICEF and WHO.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PREGNY-CHAMBESY, Switzerland, November 27, 2015\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ &#8212; \u201cI was on my way home from the school when my bus came under fire,\u201d says 11-year-old Niatou Christy Judicael, who was injured in both legs on 4 November when his bus was shot at with automatic weapons. The recent flare in violence in Bangui, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-58523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}