After about 10 hours’ drive from Yaoundè, along the road that passes through the forest for more than 600 km and where you can admire it in all its vastness, here we are, at last, in Ngaoundal at the Sainte Jeanne-Antide Thouret – Galagala Hospital, a district hospital in the Adamaoua Region of Cameroon. We are welcomed by Sr Christine, the director, Sr Claudine, the project manager, Sr Cecile, community leader and all the sisters. Sr Christine also informs the staff on duty of our arrival, particularly the health director, Dr Yves, who promptly comes to greet us. Our travelling companions on this third GRIOT mission (Clinical Management, Community Responsibility, Information and Orientation to Health Services for Fighting Tuberculosis) are Dr Antonio Cristiano (Policlinico Gemelli in Rome), Dr Giovanni Brambilla (Centro di Ateneo per la Solidarietà Internazionale – CeSI – of the Catholic University of Milan) and Sr Isabella Ayme (Thouret Onlus Foundation) on her third visit to Cameroon to follow the project.

In line with Strategic Objective 1 ‘Maximise impact against HIV, TB and malaria’ promoted by the Global Fund actions, the GRIOT project, financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and led by the Catholic University in collaboration with the Thouret Onlus Foundation and the Sainte Jeanne-Antide Thouret Hospital, aims to combat tuberculosis (TB) in the Ngaoundal health district, in the Adamaoua region of Cameroon, where the cases of TB are extremely high. The project activities are carried out under the scientific guidance of Prof. Patrizia Laurenti, lecturer in General and Applied Hygiene, and Prof. Massimo Antonelli, lecturer in Anaesthesiology and Director of the University Centre for Bioethics and Life Sciences.

We are almost on the eve of the second of six planned TBDAYs, i.e. days of prevention and awareness of extra-pulmonary tuberculosis, diagnosis of suspected cases and the initiation of follow-up and treatment of patients who test positive. The disease is widespread due to both poor hygienic conditions and inadequate pasteurisation of milk, milk that often comes from sick cattle. In preparation for TBDAY on 6 March, the hospital invested in ‘publicity’ by sending its contacts to inform local community and village leaders, as well as the directors of the several health centres in the area. So-called GRIOTs were hired, professional shouters who draw the population’s attention with their loud messages! The result was an unexpected turnout, both for the current month of Ramadan and the great heat of the dry season. Nearly three hundred people came and among them mostly women with their children, but also a fair number of men. From morning at 8 a.m. to evening at 6 p.m., the medical staff at the various stations were restricted to only a few essential breaks to prevent people from waiting too long for their turn. The work of the operators is admirable and especially patient who are illiterate and for those who, not knowing French, only speak fulfulde, the local language. People arrive at the hospital and wait under a shelter where they are immediately given an initial privacy questionnaire. They then pass under a shelter where a more specific questionnaire on tuberculosis awaits them: the health staff assesses possible symptoms and sends for the necessary investigations. Then the training takes place: symptoms of the disease are described in detail in the local language, so that everyone learns to spot suspicious coughs or sudden weight loss. Those who return home after a TBDAY report and, in their own way, provide training.

A few days after our return to Italy, extraordinary news arrives: on 24 March 2025, on the occasion of the 32nd World Tuberculosis Day, the Saint Jeanne Antida Thouret Galagala District Hospital was awarded as the best facility along with eleven other medical and health centres throughout Cameroon, following an assessment of the performance of 380 hospitals and health centres in the year 2024.

Sr Isabella Ayme