Anti-dysentery drugs of no use in Rwanda
AN ANTI-DYSENTERY drug bought by Hong Kong people for refugees in Rwanda is proving to be useless against powerful strains of the disease.
There are about 850,000 refugees in camps in the Zairean border town of Goma, living in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions.
In the past 10 days dysentery has taken over from cholera as the camps' biggest killer, with about 300,000 refugees affected.
Health workers say they are still in an emergency situation.
Ten days ago relief agencies were desperate for nalidixic acid, a drug normally effective in the treatment of dysentery. Money raised for relief agencies by Hong Kong people provided enough of the drug to treat 1,000 refugees for a week.
But the medicine has now been sent elsewhere because it is no longer working in the camps. The disease is responding only to the strongest - and most expensive - drugs.
Anne Decortis, Hong Kong head of aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres, said: ''[The refugees] don't take the drugs regularly and don't get resistance, so unfortunately we're going to have to switch.''
