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Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/...148101465.html
April 19, 2012
Deadly Kala Azar Disease Stalks South Sudan
Hannah McNeish | Juba, South Sudan
April 19, 2012
In newly independent South Sudan, deadly Kala Azar disease is still raging in some of the most remote areas lacking basic health services.
Standing next to the single tent she now calls home in the scorching sunshine, Alaskan-born Dr. Jill Seaman explained how after coming to South Sudan in 1989 and visiting villages where only five out of 1,000 people had survived a Kala Azar outbreak, she could not tear herself away from this swampland.
?We walked through villages where there was still the ash left from fires, there were still sticks left to tie your cattle up, but there were no people left, you were walking through ghost villages," said Seaman. "And that, plus watching all the skeletal people walking into the clinic every night to get treated and asking them ?how many people in your family have died?? and hearing the answer 12, 14, 8, 13 - it kind of bonds you to a community, and I suppose that?s why I?m still here.?
That Kala Azar outbreak killed around half the population in the area, and around half the 11,000 cases reported last year were treated at the clinic in Old Fangak...
April 19, 2012
Deadly Kala Azar Disease Stalks South Sudan
Hannah McNeish | Juba, South Sudan
April 19, 2012
In newly independent South Sudan, deadly Kala Azar disease is still raging in some of the most remote areas lacking basic health services.
Standing next to the single tent she now calls home in the scorching sunshine, Alaskan-born Dr. Jill Seaman explained how after coming to South Sudan in 1989 and visiting villages where only five out of 1,000 people had survived a Kala Azar outbreak, she could not tear herself away from this swampland.
?We walked through villages where there was still the ash left from fires, there were still sticks left to tie your cattle up, but there were no people left, you were walking through ghost villages," said Seaman. "And that, plus watching all the skeletal people walking into the clinic every night to get treated and asking them ?how many people in your family have died?? and hearing the answer 12, 14, 8, 13 - it kind of bonds you to a community, and I suppose that?s why I?m still here.?
That Kala Azar outbreak killed around half the population in the area, and around half the 11,000 cases reported last year were treated at the clinic in Old Fangak...
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