Typhoid Epidemic

Wambale is an 8 year-old boy, currently in our ward struck down by typhoid. His intestine perforated and he underwent surgical removal of a section of his gut. He needed re-operation twice, and is still discharging faeces. Typhoid fever is a bacterium that is transmitted by the faecal-oral route. It affects millions in the world today, particularly in poor areas with a high-density population

“These cases are the worst abdominal catastrophes that we ever encountered.” Are the words of three surgeons who worked in Kagando in decades past. But in those days it was perhaps 2 cases in a year. In the past 5 years there have been almost 500 cases (half children) operated on in Kagando, with about one in five dying. Many have endured months of suffering, with family, nurses and doctors doing their utmost before they died, as emaciated skeletons. Families have to sell their fields, their only financial asset to pay the hospital bills, causing further poverty and malnutrition.

Several volunteers, and one research group from Florida, USA worked on this outbreak. In the past 6 months a young American student, an Australian surgical trainee and myself formed a team that have got to the bottom of exactly ‘where’ and ‘why’ the disease is occurring. This week we start on ‘how many’ of the scores of patients with fever each week actually have typhoid, and not malaria. We then have an opportunity in March to present the work to Uganda’s Minister of Health, and to roll out the information to the community, with solutions on prevention.

For this we need about £500 for lab expenses (£3 per patient). If you would like to contribute, make a cheque to the ‘International Relief Fund’, marked Typhoid Research and send it to Vine Church, 131 Garvock Hill, Dunfermline. KY11 4JU, Scotland. Tel 01383-631001. (Gift Aid applies) Any excess money it will go to the ‘operating theatre extension’, which we are about to build in January, and for which we need funds.