Intestinal protozoa and intestinal helminthic infections in displacement camps in Sierra Leone.

Displacement and refugee camps provide ideal grounds for the transmission of parasites and increase the risk of acute respiratory infections, diarhoea diseases, and intestinal parasitic infection. Cryptosporidium parvum, Giardia lamblia, Entomoeba histolytica, Ascaris lumbricoides, hookworm infection, Schistosoma haematobium, S. mansoni and Strongyloides stercoralis are important cosmopolitan intestinal parasites that are common among children, the immunocompromised and displaced populations.

Saving mothers' lives: things can go wrong.

One of the goals of Sierra Leone's primary care programme, established in the 1980s, was to reduce maternal mortality by 30% by the end of the twentieth century, but no significant progress has been made in this direction. The reasons are examined below in the light of a study conducted in one of the country's Chiefdoms.