The Damien Foundation in Guinea

Launch of a new project

In 2006, Guinea Conakry's national anti-tuberculosis programme managers asked the Damien Foundation for help in monitoring its central activities, especially in Northern Guinea and Conakry City.

A major challenge

In Guinea Conakry, tuberculosis poses a real public health problem, with insufficient management resulting in low detection rates and ineffective treatment. One option proposed with a view to solving the problem has been to launch a Community DOTS programme. This would involve the Community wherever suspected cases of tuberculosis were detected, whereupon medicines would be distributed and patients given follow-up treatment.
Faced as we are with a growing number of tuberculosis patients who have contracted HIV aids, it is now time to react. This is why we urgently need to form a strategy in order to manage all patients infected with both diseases, by setting up joint TB/HIV programmes.

And leprosy...

On a national scale leprosy has, on the whole, been eliminated. However, in 2005, we did detect 926 new cases, which would point to a detection rate of one per ten thousand. Currently, the Damien Foundation is not expected to intervene, since four other partners covering the whole of the country already support the national programme.
The start of the project to be launched by January 2007 includes the appointment of a medical consultant. It covers tuberculosis, is targeted at 3 500 000 inhabitants and the budget capital for 2007 is 295 765 euros.

For more information on any of our projects,

Please consult our 2007 activity report.
Download (PDF, 2,2 MB)