The foreign ministry will be participating through its Directorate General for Development Cooperation, in the humanitarian mission "Ridare la luce 2009" (Bring back the light), to be held in the Republic of Mali from 24 November to 10 December 2009 for the treatment of the people of the Sahel desert for eye diseases and, beginning this year, for general surgical operations and the exchange of knowledge on new operating techniques between Italian and Malian doctors and nurses.
The mission is being carried out in coordination and collaboration with its creator, NGO "Associazione Fatebenefratelli per i Malati Lontani" (AFMAL), and the Italian Air Force, Alenia Aeronautica, the Italian Army, the Ministry of Health, volunteers and private Italian firms. A total of 60 doctors, paramedics, pilots and logistical support personnel will be participating.
The mission will have medical equipment at its disposal for endoscopic digestive surgery and laboratory testing, and courses will be held for local doctors. The training aspect will be one of the mission's strong-points. Its two-week duration will include a seminar for local doctors and paramedics on emergency cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and the use of new surgical techniques for abdominal and laparoscopic surgery. Specialised military medical personnel from Air Force course in Aeronautic and Space medicine will train Malian physicians in typical pathologies in heavily distressed and tropical areas. The theme of infectious diseases is a particularly resonant one, and the Italian Cooperation, in close collaboration with the Health Ministry's Advanced Institute for Health Studies, is committed to the creation of an eye clinic at the Gaò Hospital through the construction of an ophthalmology department, the installation of eye surgery equipment, and a testing lab where Italian and Malian doctors will collaborate on the treatment and study of related pathologies.
The medical and paramedical, civil and military personnel involved will leave on 24 November from the Pratica di Mare (Rome) airport and work at the Gaò hospital on the Niger river near the border with Nigeria.
The equipment, supplies and personnel will arrive in Africa with a C-130J transport plane of the 46th Pisa Brigade and the new C-27J transport plane of Alenia Aeronautica.
The oculists are from the Hospitals Fatebenefratelli San Pietro of Rome, Isola Tiberina, and San Giovanni di Dio in Seville (Spain), San Camillo in Rome and the Italian Air Force medical facilities. They will operate together in Mali, for example, on removing cataracts, which in various forms strike nearly 80% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa. AFMAL has been active in this sector in Mali since 2003, and since 2004 with the collaboration of the Air Force. It has carried out ten missions resulting in over 19,000 examinations and 3,600 cataract operations. Operating alongside are surgeons and anaesthesiologists from the military medical facilities of both the Air Force and the Army, Rome's new Itor Clinic, the Universities of Rome "La Sapienza" and "Tor Vergata" at Fatebenefratelli, and from Vanderbildt University in Tennessee (US).
