A short introduction

On the whole Project Harar deals with five different types of facial condition of varying seriousness and degree of complication. All of them need to be treated differently.

Cleft Palate and Lip

Perhaps the best known facial deformity in the UK. It is still unclear why this genetic condition exists.

Around 1 in 700 babies are affected and conditions vary from the relatively simple gaps in lips to the more complicated cases where there are multiple holes in the lip (Bilateral) and there is no palate.

Babies who are born with this problem in the UK are operated on soon after birth, but in Africa, as the condition is not likely to lead to death it is ignored. Moreover in all but the Capital Addis Ababa the expertise is unavailable.

Children who grow up without treatment often endure worsening looks and teeth often develop at unusual and unsightly angles. Without a palate they cannot speak properly.

Two relatively simple corrective procedures are necessary. The combined cost for the two operations is £300 in Ethiopia.

Back to top

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Noma

This particularly unpleasant, but non contagious flesh eating disease is now virtually unknown in the UK, although it was encountered right up until the turn of the last century particularly in slums. It was also seen in Nazi concentration camps.

It is a disease of the very poorest and severest malnourished and generally affects the young.

When children have a high fever in the UK, they are treated with anti biotic medicines unavailable in many areas of Africa. In rare cases, the children's antibodies that normally protect and fight a virus become 'confused'. They actually 'turn' on their host body attacking it.

The horrible result is that flesh is eaten away causing terrible facial disfigurement. The whole process takes only a few days, starting with a small hole in the cheek and working outwards. As mysteriously as it starts, it can stop. Doctors believe that around 80% of victims die.

Because of their frightening looks, the individuals that suffer this disease are perhaps the most shunned of all.

The technology to repair large holes in the face has been around for decades, but operations are complicated and take many hours and repeat operations. Doctors are still improving techniques all the time.

They literally patch and fill the holes up with transplanted skin muscle and cartilage. They clone and grow new skin from existing blood supplies to manufacture more skin and use skin grafts where possible too.

Both costly and time intensive procedures, the results are incredible and offer the patient their life back and a way back into normal society.

Back to top

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tumours

We do not come across many tumour cases, but we will take on these patients as and when we do.

Back to top

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Burns

So serious and high are the incidences of burns in Ethiopia that the Yekatit 12 Hospital in Addis has the Horn of Africa's only dedicated Paediatric Burns unit.

Electricity for light, heating and cooking is rare in outlying districts in the country, and people rely on open flames for their needs. But fires becoming out of control in and near mud and wooden huts, especially in a country so dry is an ever present threat.

Sadly, terrible burns from accidents are regularly seen. Each patient requires a long term and painful course of skin grafts.

Back to top

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attacks from animals

Children are often in danger from attacks by wild animals. In the Harar district, hyenas are a menace, especially during droughts when not only the people are desperate for food and water.

The injuries inflicted range in seriousness, but often require plastic surgery and up to date facial rebuilding procedures.

Back to top