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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Sarah Johnson in Mahama camp

Diabetes and high blood pressure: why are ‘urban’ diseases affecting refugees?

Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda
Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda is home to the 58,000 inhabitants, most of them escaping conflict in Burundi and DRC. Photograph: Sarah Johnson/The Guardian

The profile of people registering at the two health centres in Mahama refugee camp, Rwanda, is changing. Doctors no longer focus on diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea, but increasingly on conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. And the patients are getting younger.

Among those registered are a six-year-old with hypertension (high blood pressure); a two-year-old with respiratory problems; a woman in her early 40s in renal failure – she needs a kidney transplant after developing hypertension during pregnancy – and a woman in her 20s who was first diagnosed with diabetes when she fell into a coma.

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