Nyakweth's parents were sure she would die. A blood transfusion, high energy food, and TB meds worked wonders. Three months into TB treatment, she was sick again. Her fevers returned and would not go away. Suddenly we realized it must be kala azar - and voila!

Even with appropriate drugs, medical challenges are huge. Transfusions, for little ones in heart failure, save lives. Malnutrition is an ever-present risk in areas without food security. This year we were blessed with enough donations to purchase prepackaged high-energy biscuits and milk - cheaper from France than mixing it ourselves in Africa.

Kong

Kong arrived with horrible fevers, an infected palate, kala azar and loads of troubles. He received Dr. Jack's blood, AmBisome, donated by MSF, and high-energy foods thanks to our donors! Now he is training to be the best percussionist in Old Fangak

EYE CLINIC

Here is Peter Mut doing an eyelid surgery. We sent him to Uganda to eye tech school, where he surprised himself by doing really well despite his lack of ”proper schooling”. Peter is back in Uganda taking prerequisites for clinical oficer training. In the meantime, we have teamed up with the Carter Center. They do lots of educational outreach on trachoma, the leading preventable cause of blindness in the world. Then they send patients who need surgery to us in Old Fangak for our annual eye blitz - another 300 sight-saving or sight-restoring operations in 2 weeks!

Patients from historically opposed
backgrounds getting on together

The photo at left may not be a stunning picture, but we find it symbolic of the best aspects of our program. The man is 25 years old, with liver failure from Hepatitis B. He traveled all the way from the Ethiopian border seeking help. After a quick satellite consult with liver experts in Alaska we sought medicines in Nairobi and started the first hepatitis B treatment program in south Sudan. He responded well. You can’t imagine how happy that makes him! The boy on the right was carried to our site after a severe relapse of kala azar that no one could treat. Now he’s healthy and ready to go home. The man took the boy to the river to fish. The man is Nuer, the boy is Dinka - traditional enemies who fished together in two languages.

They cooked up the fish and brought it over to share with the young girl in the foreground, who could not walk at the time. She was really malnourished, but so puffy with edema that she looks almost normal size. She is Gawar Nuer, a historical enemy of the Nuer in Fangak and the Nuer from Ethiopia. The girl, they tell me by satellite phone, is now running through the market, after taking her meds for TB and nephrotic syndrome.