Elem Aid Post

Elem, on the banks on the mighty Yuat River, is a tiny community nestled in the pristine jungle typical of the area. Its tiny aidpost is the only health care for miles around. At the moment the centre does not have any health workers and there is no permanent staff housing.

Nearly at sea level, it is extremely hot terrain, but breathtakingly beautiful to behold.

In 2000, a medical patrol found 95% of the community were malaria smear positive at the time and enlarged spleens were present in over 50%. The average haemoglobin on samples taken was 7.5g/dl. Simply put this means that nearly the entire community was struggling daily under the burden of continuous malaria infection, in most cases reducing their blood “strength” by nearly half.

Other medical problems include TB and fungal skin infections (common in hot conditions of the Sepik flat country).