Leger Uten Grenser
MSF9410
Five-year-old Ansu is spooning up high calorie milk with a big appetite. MSF has been treating the little boy for severe malnutrition for a week now. He is a patient at the Gondama Referral Centre (GRC) in Sierra Leone. In his first few days at GRC, Ansu lost more weight. This is a typical result of the oedema that can come with severe malnutrition and happens when the body sheds the previously retained fluids. Now Ansu is slowly starting to regain weight. If he maintains his appetite, he will soon be put on ready-to-use therapeutic food instead of the milk. Ansu also suffers from sickle-cell disease, or sickle-cell anaemia. This is a genetic blood disorder characterized by red blood cells that assume an abnormal, rigid sickle shape. The sickle-cell disease weakens Ansu further. His liver is enlarged and he suffers from severe anaemia. When Ansu first came to GRC, his haemoglobin count was down to 1 which is life-threateningly low. He was immediately given a blood transfusion and antibiotics for reasons of precaution - for a healthy child of his age a count of 11 to 14 g/dl is normal. On average, MSF treats 150 children with severe malnutrition each month. In Sierra Leone, severe malnutrition is a major problem, in particular during the hunger gap between May and July every year. Foto: Annika Schaefer
MSF9410
Five-year-old Ansu is spooning up high calorie milk with a big appetite. MSF has been treating the little boy for severe malnutrition for a week now. He is a patient at the Gondama Referral Centre (GRC) in Sierra Leone. In his first few days at GRC, Ansu lost more weight. This is a typical result of the oedema that can come with severe malnutrition and happens when the body sheds the previously retained fluids. Now Ansu is slowly starting to regain weight. If he maintains his appetite, he will soon be put on ready-to-use therapeutic food instead of the milk. Ansu also suffers from sickle-cell disease, or sickle-cell anaemia. This is a genetic blood disorder characterized by red blood cells that assume an abnormal, rigid sickle shape. The sickle-cell disease weakens Ansu further. His liver is enlarged and he suffers from severe anaemia. When Ansu first came to GRC, his haemoglobin count was down to 1 which is life-threateningly low. He was immediately given a blood transfusion and antibiotics for reasons of precaution - for a healthy child of his age a count of 11 to 14 g/dl is normal. On average, MSF treats 150 children with severe malnutrition each month. In Sierra Leone, severe malnutrition is a major problem, in particular during the hunger gap between May and July every year. Foto: Annika Schaefer