The Pool d’Urgence Congo (PUC) is an MSF project that, since 1995, aims at quickly responding to up to four emergencies simultaneously across the vast country Democratic Republic of Congo. Its 80 permanent staff, who can be reinforced by up to 150 Congo-based volunteers ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice, actively monitor possible health threats in the country and are trained to intervene quickly in case of human or natural disasters as well as diverse epidemics (measles, meningitis, hemorrhagic fevers, yellow fever, typhoid fever, malaria, plague, cholera and bloody diarrhea). In 2016, the PUC led 26 interventions that reached 300.000 beneficiaries across the country.

The DRC is as vast as Europe, but its weak infrastructure and challenging topography makes the conduct of emergency relief operations a challenge. In this video, field coordinator Julien Binet recalls a challenging operation where the team needed to rely on its wits and “can do” attitude to reach on time a village hit by a devastating typhoid fever epidemic.