Facing Africa

Noma (more formally known as cancrum oris) is an acute and ravaging gangrenous infection of the face. The main victims of Noma are young children due to extreme poverty and chronic malnutrition.

It is estimated that the mortality rate reaches up to an alarming 90%, while the survivors are unlikely to be able to eat or speak normally and are social outcasts.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates an annual incidence of 500,000 victims world-wide. This means that around 450,000 children aged between infancy and puberty will die each year, mainly in sub-Saharan countries from Senegal to Ethiopia, a region also known as "the Noma belt".

Ideally NOMA can be prevented by feeding the hungry and malnourished. More realistically, educating the villagers and improving the primary health care to detect and treat NOMA early on prevents the rapid escalation from initial infection to death.

Treating children afflicted with NOMA involves reconstructive facial surgery, this is very effective and substantially removes the disfigurement that is the cause of social isolation and functional impairment.

Facing Africa is a UK registered charity with the aim of treating and preventing NOMA. This includes working with European partners to send volunteer medical teams to the main areas affected (eg. Nigeria, Ethiopia) where they carry out the facial surgery operations and teach the process to local teams of surgeons.