About Cameroon
Cameroon is located in the west of Central Africa and is not without reason called "Afrique en minature". The country is a mirror of Africa, because it offers all the African diversity of landscape, culture, flora and fauna and climate. From the steppe climate in the north, to the savannah climate with a longer rainy season, to tropical climate in the south with the certain rainy and dry seasons. Cameroon's area is about 475,000km2 and is divided into 10 provinces, comparable to the Swiss cantons.
The official languages are French (80) and English (20), which are of equal importance according to the Constitution. In addition, about 230 local African dialects, such as Douala, Bantu or Kribi, are spoken. About 40 of the population are Christians, 20 Muslims and the rest of the people live their natural religions.
Health care in Cameroon
Medical care
The medical care of Cameroon's 24 million people, like many other African countries, is in poor condition. Hospitals are disintegrating, insufficiently equipped, do not even meet minimal hygiene regulations and many appliances are old, broken and cannot be serviced on site. Often there are few or no doctors in clinics and the treatments are carried out by the nursealone alone – in some cases also surgeries, which should be done urgently by expert surgeons.
Life expectancy is currently 56 years. Infant mortality per 1,000 births is 55.1 and maternal mortality per 100,000 live births is 700. Depending on the source, between 5 and 10 of the adult population are considered infected with the HIV virus. (as of 2014).
Missing health system
The density of doctors is 0.08 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants. Due to a largely missing health system, the majority of the population has no or only very limited access to medical care and this is exactly where we want to start with our project.
