Short Report – Special Collection: Climate Change

Experiences from Cyclone Anna and Cyclone Dumako: A short report

Amos Mailosi, Stanley Mwalwanda, Charles Hassan, Stalin Zinkanda, Beatrice Matanje, Fabien Munyaneza, Moses B. Aron, Emily Dally, Manuel Mulwafu, Chiyembekezo Kachimanga
African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine | Vol 14, No 1 | a3761 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v14i1.3761 | © 2022 Amos Mailosi, Stanley Mwalwanda, Charles Hassan, Stalin Zinkanda, Beatrice Matanje, Fabien Munyaneza, Moses B. Aron, Emily Dally, Manuel Mulwafu, Chiyembekezo Kachimanga | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 17 August 2022 | Published: 14 December 2022

About the author(s)

Amos Mailosi, Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine and Oral Health, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Blantyre, Malawi
Stanley Mwalwanda, Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine and Oral Health, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Blantyre, Malawi
Charles Hassan, Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine and Oral Health, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Blantyre, Malawi
Stalin Zinkanda, District Health and Social Services, Chikwawa District Council, Chikwawa, Malawi
Beatrice Matanje, Partners in Health, Neno, Malawi
Fabien Munyaneza, Partners in Health, Neno, Malawi
Moses B. Aron, Partners in Health, Neno, Malawi
Emily Dally, Partners in Health, Boston, United States
Manuel Mulwafu, Partners in Health, Neno, Malawi
Chiyembekezo Kachimanga, Partners In Health, Neno, Malawi

Abstract

In the third week of January 2022, the southern districts of Malawi were hit by Cyclone Ana. The worst affected areas were Chikwawa and Nsanje. Four weeks following Cyclone Ana, a rather smaller cyclone, Dumako, hit the same areas, causing more damage. The Partners in Health or Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo, an international humanitarian nongovernmental organisation that provides primary health care (PHC), organised teams to join Chikwawa District Council – Health, providing PHC assistance in the most affected district (Chikwawa); these teams were joined by three senior residents in family medicine from Kamuzu University of Health Sciences.

Contribution: From the experiences of the interventions reported here, it was learnt that a multidisciplinary team of PHC providers is the key to the success of the emergency PHC programmes in times of natural disasters. While immediate PHC may be important at the actual time of disaster, it was learnt that PHC is also very important for continuation of care for chronic conditions, antenatal clinics and other clinics that are interrupted by the disaster. The experiences emphasised the importance of involving the PHC physicians and other PHC cadres in planning PHC programmes in natural disaster–prone areas.


Keywords

Cyclone Ana; Partners In Health; primary health care; family medicine; continuation of care; climate change; Malawi.

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