| Popis: |
In the framework of the smallpox eradication worldwide programme, WHO, the Ethiopian, and the French governments signed a cooperation agreement by which the French Army Medical Service, based in the French Afars and Issas Territory (TFAI), was designated to carry out an immunization campaign in the ethiopian districts along the border with TFAI. With the every-day collaboration of the ethiopian governmental and traditional authorities, 44,000 people were immunized by the medical and paramedical personnel of 5 "ground teams" with heavy equipment and all-track vehicles and 1 "air-team" with helicopteres. In the same time (7 Feb. - 8 March 1974), the teams collected epidemiological informations on five selected tropical diseases: tuberculosis, malaria, bilharziosis, cholera, small-pox; a team from the TFAI Hygiene and Epidemiological Service investigated thoroughly the Kalo area. The ethiopian border districts are under-equiped with medical and hygiene facilities, and the population is used to go to the TFAI dispensaries and hospitals. TFAI being free of malaria, bilharziosis and smallpox, the French Medical Service has to maintain a firm grip on possible spreading. Kalo area might be a favorable reservoir due to the prevailing ecological conditions. Tuberculosis is so widely common that any control in the TFAI would imply a BCG campaign on both sides of the border within an inter-governmental plan of operations. |
