Treatment
Known in antiquity to such physicians as Hippocrates and Galen, noma was once reported around the world, including Europe and the United States. With the improvement in hygiene and nutrition, noma has disappeared from industrialized countries since the 20th Century, except during World War II when it was endemic to Auschwitz and Belsen concentration camps. The disease and treatments were studied by Berthold Epstein, a Czech physician and forced-labor prisoner who had recommended the study under Josef Mengele's direction.
The progression of the disease can be halted with the use of antibiotics and improved nutrition; however, its physical effects are permanent and may require reconstructive plastic surgery to repair. Reconstruction is usually very challenging and it should be delayed until full recovery (usually about one year following initial intervention).
Children and other noma survivors in Africa are helped by a few international charitable organizations—such as Facing Africa (a UK registered charity that helps Ethiopian sufferers). There is one dedicated noma hospital in Nigeria, the Noma Children Hospital Sokoto, staffed by resident and visiting medical teams. In other countries, like Ethiopia, international charities work in collaboration with the local health care system to provide complex reconstructive surgery which can give back facial functions such as eating, speaking and smiling. Teams of volunteer medics coming from abroad are often needed to support the local capacity to address the most severe cases, which can be extremely challenging even for senior maxillofacial surgeons. On 10 June 2010 the work of such volunteer surgeons was featured in a UK BBC2 documentary presented by Ben Fogle titled 'Make me a new face - Hope for Africa's hidden children'.
Read more about this topic: Noma (disease)
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“To me, nothing can be more important than giving children books, It’s better to be giving books to children than drug treatment to them when they’re 15 years old. Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn’t have to put them in prisons?”
—Fran Lebowitz (20th century)
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—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)