Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) - In the 1970s Kenya still had three large leper colonies at Alupe, Kadem and Mombasa. Until the mid 1980s more than 800 new cases of leprosy were registered every year. In 1989, according to the World Health Organisation, leprosy in Kenya had been eradicated.
However according to an Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau AIFO leprosy is still present in four provinces of Kenya Coastal, Nyanza, Western and Eastern.
Since 1976 the Italian missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Ivrea have run a Clinic at Kadem for people suffering from leprosy and TB. The sisters work mainly in the field of basic healthcare, mother/child assistance, care for leprosy and TB patients. But they also offer an important service of education/formation and assistance to families in need.
Kadem is in the south western part of the Nyanza province bordering on Lake Victoria and Tanzania. The area is a semiarid plateau where irregular rainfall makes cultivation of land extremely difficult and everywhere poverty is plainly visible.
Four Sisters work at the Clinic with 2 trained nurses, 2 assistant nurses, 2 local healthcare assistants and one laboratory assistant. At the outpatient department open 6 days a week the sisters treat between 70/80 people a day: medical examinations, minor surgery, vaccinations, distribution of medicine and laboratory tests. The Centre’s inpatients are people suffering from leprosy, particularly those with reaction or sores, or people suffering from TB. Today the Clinic’s 24 beds are no longer sufficient and sometimes the sisters have to put patients in the corridors temporarily. Almost 90% of the TB patients are also HIV+ and at need at least two months therapy. Just as important is the Clinic’s service food distribution and care for children and old people showing signs of under nourishment. The Clinic also organises vaccination for children and pregnant mothers, assistance for families with a child with a disability. Its mobile unit makes weekly visits to 16 medical centres which are points of reference for surrounding villages in the districts of Migori, Homabay and Suba. (AP) (18/3/2006 Agenzia Fides; Righe:33; Parole:418)
