Location: Sudan - South Sudan: Tonga (Upper Nile state), Phom Zeraf (Jonglei state)

Situation:

After more than 20 years of war, and despite the North-South peace agreement, the current situation is not conducive to a real reconstruction process. The health system is the first to suffer. Since  2004, Doctors of the World (DOW) has been trying hard to help restore access to healthcare for the populations along the Nile, south-west of the town of Malakal.

Activities:

Until 2009, DOW was working to improve access to, and quality of, primary healthcare by developing activities in two health centres, reaching 30,000 beneficiaries. This involved introducing minimal provision of care including medical consultations, vaccination, health education, communicable disease surveillance and provision of essential medicines. In addition, DOW provides resources to enable a rapid response to epidemics and to population displacements (common when there is tribal fighting).As a result of the project 1,000 consultations are carried out, on average, each month in the health centres.

Outlook:
The project finished in May 2009 with the handover of the health  centres to the Ministry of Health. Since then, DOW has been carefully monitoring the political, economic and health developments in the region, with a view to intervening if necessary.