Guinea-Bissau

MSF staff, along with Ministry of Health staff, Red Cross volunteers, civil protection and police, have undergone specific COVID-19 clinical management and infection prevention and control training.   

In the capital, Bissau, at the National Hospital Siamo Mendes (HNSM), we have provided training on infectio, prevention and control, water and sanitation, and waste management. We are also supporting triage of suspected cases.  

We assisted in the set-up and are now supporting a local call centre and mobile response team who are doing case detection, alert confirmation and contact tracing. Health promotion and community engagement work is ongoing in HNSM and also with various communities in different areas of the city and SAB (sector autonomo de Bissau). 

Since independence in 1974, the country has been subjected to considerable military and political upheaval. The country is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world. In 2016, continuing political instability further weakened its crumbling health system.

Endemic poverty, limited access to education, safe drinking water and sanitation, and a health care system in need of reform, have lead to massive issues in maternal and child health, as well as sexual and reproductive health. Médecins Sans Frontières first worked in Guinea-Bissau in 1998.

Managing Child Mortality 

In the central region of Bafatá, MSF continued working to reduce childhood mortality by managing the regional hospital’s neonatal and paediatric wards and running a nutrition program for children under 15 years of age. Teams also support four health centres in rural areas and train community health workers to diagnose and treat diarrhoea, malaria and acute respiratory infections, and to detect and refer patients with malnutrition.

In Simao Mendes national hospital, in the capital Bissau, MSF supported activities in the paediatric intensive care unit and in the neonatal intensive care unit (PICU). The team worked closely and successfully with the Ministry of Health’s paediatric and maternity services to reduce the very high child mortality rates in the units, which were mainly due to neonatal sepsis, lower respiratory tract infections and malaria.

Fighting Malaria 

To face the yearly seasonal increase of malaria cases, MSF doubled the bed capacity of the regional hospital during the months of higher incidence and implemented a seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) strategy for the first time in the country. As a result of the team’s advocacy and training initiatives, funds were allocated for SMC in other regions of Guinea-Bissau.

As malaria is one of the most prevalent diseases in the country, many children with fevers are misdiagnosed and summarily treated with antimalarial drugs. To prevent this practice, we initiated a study to document the epidemiological profile of the diseases found in Bafatá and create a simple diagnosis tree to allow medical personnel to correctly diagnose a child’s illness and treat it effectively.