Rural visit to dispensary

So today we visited a village 66km away from Pangani, which itself is in the back and beyond. No running water. No power. No latrines.

Why?

Two cases of measles sent to us in the last 2 days.

All children should be vaccinated but uptake is scanty.

We performed, after our 2 hour 4x4 journey involving a boat across a river, and house to house search for other possible cases.

1 definite (with koplik spots - only the second time I've seen them) and several suspected.

The advice - to keep cases here for management to contact the infection.

We also visited the dispensary itself - which was actually fairly well stocked and not busy at present. One problem - poor communication with the district hospital at Pangani. No phones or faxes - the staff just use their own mobiles at their own expense - which is a deterrent given the cost of calls here.

I am exceedingly hot and tired after just three hours in sun.

Ps did you notice the mosquito net placed next to a fishing net? Sadly the district medical officer (the only doctor at Pangani hospital) also reiterated that out of all the nets he'd distributed, for free, not a single one was in use (at least, for the purpose for which it was intended). He also explained how local beliefs prevailed and that people thought that both vaccination programs and impregnated mosquito nets were a ploy by the government to render the population impotent and infertile.