Ouagadougou – Supplies delivered for the brand-new programme

03/13/2015

Just five months after the agreement was signed between Fondation Pierre Fabre and the Comité d’Initiative contre la Drépanocytose au Burkina (Sickle Cell Disease Initiative Committee in Burkina or CID/B), medical equipment and supplies were delivered.

A closer look at the new Burkinabe programme’s first steps.

The official presentation ceremony
At a ceremony held at the Hôpital Saint Camille in Ouagadougou on 27 February, representatives of the CID/B and Fondation Pierre Fabre officially donated the medical equipment and supplies for use in the fight against sickle cell disease to the hospital and the University of Health Sciences, the two local CID/B implementation partners.

The event was attended by the Ambassador of France in Burkina Faso, Gilles Thibault, who reiterated the support of the French authorities for public-health aid initiatives, as well as the representative of the Burkina Ministry of Health, Dr Estelle Dembélé, Director of the Non-Communicable Diseases department.

The CID/B was represented by its National Coordinator, Dramane Banaon, the Hôpital Saint Camille by its Director, Father Paul Ouedraogo, the University of Health Sciences by Professor Eléonore Kafando and Fondation Pierre Fabre by Béatrice Garrette, Director General, and Véronique Teyssié, Project Manager.

Essential equipment
The equipment funded by Fondation Pierre Fabre is for the pilot centre for sickle cell management at the Hôpital Saint Camille, which is primarily designed for:

– managing hyperalgesia crises that are resisting home treatment;
– scheduled transfusion operations, such as simple transfusions, exchange transfusions and bloodletting;
– on-site treatment of major orthopaedic complications;
– organisation of follow-up to the neonatal diagnoses to begin in the maternity ward at the Hôpital Saint Camille.

Another type of equipment funded by the Foundation: the Capillarys™, an apparatus for use in the haematology laboratory of the University of Ouagadougou to analyse haemoglobin by electrophoresis. This equipment will prove very useful in developing diagnostics in the first neonatal screening campaign to begin soon. These campaigns promote early treatment of diagnosed children and add to the epidemiological knowledge base for sickle cell disease.

The next stage of the programme entails creating an information centre that is accessible to the population. The CID/B just obtained the premises for this centre from the Ouagadougou city hall. To be continued…