"Malaria has been and remains the main cause of consultations in this facility. We receive many patients, some coming from as far as 8 kilometres from here. Before the Red Cross came in, testing for malaria was a tedious exercise and frustrating for patients who had to wait long hours before being served," says Dr Scholastic Ouba-Mossorro from his office at the Potevu health centre in the capital of the Central African Republic.
Through a grant from the Global Fund of 15 million Euros, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has been distributing equipment to help fight the very preventable disease of malaria, the number one killer in the country, even in the face of more than one year of conflict. The equipment includes rapid malaria testing kits and treatment for positive cases.
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