Chyron:

Malakal
South Sudan

Luisa Roade
MSF medical activity manager

Subtitles:

Here in Malakal we have
a really vulnerable population

because the living conditions
are really basic,

with lack of access to food
and basic resources

like water and sanitary conditions.

These living conditions
are the perfect environment

for some diseases to spread.

We are receiving
a lot of patients with TB

and that is why we are trying to improve
our capacity for diagnosis.

Making an accurate diagnosis
is really important in TB

to give an accurate treatment.

It is especially difficult
in some populations

like children and
immunosuppressed patients.

We are starting to use some tools
to try to improve the diagnosis of TB.

The point-of-care ultrasound,
we call it Pocus.

It is a machine
that we use to see some basic signs

that can make us think about TB,

like lymph nodes,
pleural effusions, pericardial effusions.

Walim is a 46-year-old patient
that came here

as a suspected TB case.

He has received treatment twice
in his life.

Now we have confirmed
the TB diagnosis,

without resistance
to the main drugs we are using.

We are also using GeneXpert,

an automatic machine
that amplifies DNA.

We are using it to detect TB in fluids

mainly in sputum.

It gives results
very quickly – in two hours.

Dhiu is a young patient
who came to the hospital

with a big mass in the neck.

We suspect an abscess.

GeneXpert confirmed
that it was not TB

we are giving antibiotics.

Text:
Chronic diseases
often go untreated
in South Sudan


MSF is working to make
diagnosis and treatment
available to people in need