Bangladesh: MSF responds to an upsurge in malaria cases

Dhaka/Amsterdam – In the last three months the international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has treated nearly 1,700 people affected by malaria in remote areas of southeast Bangladesh.

In August, MSF launched an emergency intervention in Bandarban district in the Chittagong Hill Tracts – an area where malaria is endemic – to support the operations run in local clinics and hospitals by the Ministry of Health, and to help reach those communities living in the hardest to access villages.

Health workers often travelled long distances in tiny boats and walked for hours through forests and up hills and crossed narrow wooden bridges in order to reach the people in need of assistance.

“My three-year-old daughter could not eat. She was too sick. Village health workers tested her blood and then provided her with malaria drugs. These services gave us a feeling of relief and safety”, explained the mother of a patient treated by MSF in the small village of Khaiwai Para.

“We feel happy now that we are getting good care.”

In the last five years the Bangladesh authorities have made progress in fulfilling their objective to eliminate malaria across the country by 2020, managing to notably reduce the number of cases nationwide. However, the mosquito-borne infectious disease has remained a challenge in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
For Details: http://www.msf.org/article/bangladesh-msf-responds-upsurge-malaria-cases