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Friend,
Treza’s* father laid her carefully on the bed in the emergency room (ER). The eight-year-old girl was unconscious, barely breathing. She’d been having seizures. The medical team began the assessment immediately.
Before we’d even done any tests we all thought the same thing: malaria.
Malaria is endemic in the Abyei Administrative Area between Sudan and South Sudan, where I was a pediatrician at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Agok. It was rare for us to see a patient who didn’t have it. The rainy season creates pools of stagnant water, perfect breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite, infecting people in such high numbers that we had to erect tents as overflow wards.
Although the rapid work of the ER team stabilized her condition, Treza was in a coma for over a week and we prepared for the worst. But on day 13, she opened her eyes. Less than two weeks later, she took her first steps with support from her father.
In South Sudan, where floods have intensified since 2019, cutting off roads and making access to medical care challenging, Treza is one of many people bearing the brunt of the climate crisis in the region.
As I watched Treza recover, I thought about the team who had made this possible. There was her family who had been dedicated throughout, the team in the ER who gave her that vital initial care, and the diligent staff who kept her alive day-to-day. There were the doctors who treated her convulsions, the lab staff who identified she had meningitis and malaria, the nutritional assistants who provided her special food, the physiotherapist who worked on her mobility, and the counselor who supported her family.
This email was sent from the U.S. section of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care.
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