Médecins Sans Frontières - Stopping Pneumonia Before It Kills (ENG)

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF143531

Date taken / Date Recorded 30/03/2015 12:00 AM

Country Ethiopia

Commissioning section MSF-FRANCE

Photographer / videographer / producer Aurelie Baumel

Copyright MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★★ (E)

Video format h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 2m53s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 265.92 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist Stopping Pneumonia Before It Kills

(00:00)
VO: In the Gambella region of western Ethiopia more than 194,000 refugees from South Sudan have taken shelter. (0:08) They have been displaced by the fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those led by his former vice president Riek Machar over the last year and half. (0:17)

VO: Each day new refugees arrive. This is expected to continue as long as the peace process fails to produce an agreement between the warring parties. (0:26)

VO: Having already been displaced inside South Sudan for some time, with few resources and little if any medical care, the refugees often arrive in poor health. (0:36)
Some children are malnourished and most have not gotten the vaccines they need due to the collapsed health system at home. (0:43)

TEXT OVER VIDEO: This grandmother and her family have been in Gambella for nearly a year. Last summer, she says, pneumonia was widespread. (0:50)

Grandmother: It was very crowded and cold. (0:54)

VO: The camps’ high population density and poor hygiene create perfect conditions for pneumonia and respiratory infections to spread. (1:02) These illnesses can be deadly, especially for children who are the most at risk. (1:06)

TEXT: Natale Carasali
MSF pediatrician

Natale Carasali: I think the most common diseases here are diarrheal diseases and lower respiratory tract infections or pneumonia. (1:13) ...mostly associated with the acute severe malnutrition. (1:17) ...their immune systems are depressed. But we also see it in the other children, too, who come to the pediatric ward so it is common. (1:24)

VO: Where MSF is working in these refugees sites, pneumonia and respiratory infections have been the major cause of hospitalization, around a quarter of all admissions in some areas. (1:35)

TEXT: Barbara Saitta
MSF Vaccination Operational Advocacy Focal Point

Barbara Saitta: MSF decided to launch a mass vaccination campaign because we realized in the first quarter of last year the main causes of disease and death among children in the clinics where we work were due to pneumonia and respiratory infection. (1:54) So in order to prevent more death we decided to launch this campaign. (2:00)

VO: (2:03) A vaccination campaign in this area is not an easy operation. (2:07) Vaccines have to be kept at a certain temperature to be effective, which makes for challenging logistics. The vaccines also require two or three doses, depending on the age of the child, so it is not a one-time operation. (2:21)

VO: But the results will speak for themselves - 50,000 children will not be targets for pneumonia and respiratory infections. (2:28) Their parents or grandparents will not have to bring them in sick and in danger of dying because they never got the vaccination available to children elsewhere. (2:37)

Natale Carasali: It's a very fundamental foundation of pediatrics anywhere. (2:41) I'm just glad they are doing it here because it is just kind of the standard around the world now. (2:46) That children should get vaccines against the diseases that are preventable. (2:50)

TEXT: MSF logo and website address (2:53)