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Focus on Masisi project

The territory of Masisi has been the scene of armed conflict for years, but has recently undergone a new outbreak of violence, following the resurgence of clashes between the M23 movement, other armed groups and the Congolese armed forces, which has only worsened the already critical humanitarian situation and led to new displacements of population.

Médecins Sans frontières (MSF) has been providing free medical care in the Masisi health zone since 2007, where baseline health conditions are poor due to a dysfunctional health system and an ongoing active and protracted conflict. In collaboration with the Ministry of health, MSF teams support all the services of the general referral hospital of Masisi, four health centers and put in place outreach activities in the health zone. MSF remains the largest humanitarian medical actor in zone to provide medical assistance and alleviate the suffering of residents and several thousands of displaced people.

Already stretched thing by decades of conflict, those health facilities have been facing continuous increase of the number of admissions in most of the services, forcing teams to add extra beds and extension of building, and thus, are often running at maximum capacity. Since the beginning of the year, MSF teams have been observing quite worrying signs of malnutrition in the Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centres (ITFC) in the general referral hospital of Masisi and the referral health center in Nyabiondo. Our teams have treated per month, in both ITFC, more than 480 cases of severe acute malnutrition with complications between January and September 2023 - double compared to same time last year -, with often 2 or 3 children per bed and observed an increase of children returning after several weeks only.

MSBSTO39534

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