Rainy season in South Sudan’s Northern Bahr el Ghazal State brings flooding each year, between August and November. This creates a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which transmit life-threatening malaria. To respond to the peak of malaria, ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) provided medical care via mobile clinics in the State's capital city of Aweil from 2017 until mid-2020.
Early each morning, medical teams from ALIMA load up a small van with life-saving medications and supplies, and drive for as long as two hours into remote villages in the Aweil area to provide primary health care to local communities. The majority of the patients suffer from malaria symptoms, but diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections and malnutrition are also common ailments.
Throughout the country, malaria is one of the main causes of hospitalization and the leading cause of death. While malaria is present throughout the year, the number of cases drastically increases during the rainy season, when mosquitoes are more numerous. Malaria poses a particular risk to children under five who suffer from moderate or severe acute malnutrition, and pregnant women.
During the rainy season, many areas become inaccessible. Compounding the problem, the health system has been fractured by years of conflict and ongoing security concerns, which make access to remaining functional health centers difficult. Many pharmacies no longer stock medications and families struggle to afford them in the few places that do.
Alphonse Jor Ajang lives in a village 70km from Aweil.
“Health care is hard to find," he says. "Before the mobile clinic, I would go to the main hospital. They would prescribe medication that I would need to go get at the pharmacy, but most times I could not afford it, so I would remain in pain.”
Even worse, he says, is when the children are sick.
"When a child got sick you had to carry him to the hospital. Some were very sick and would even die on the way. There was nothing we could do. Now when a child is sick we can bring them to the mobile clinic, where they can get the treatment and recover."
This, Dr. Deng Simon Garang, ALIMA's Medical Activity Manager in Aweil, says, is the reason why mobile clinics were developed. Mobile clinics are a strategy to respond to limited access to healthcare, to enhance access and to provide quality care.
"We wanted, we needed, to get closer to communities with the mobile clinics, because access to healthcare is a big challenge here.”
At each mobile clinic destination, instead of communities having to go to health structures, ALIMA health workers come to the community. Health promoters remind people about malaria signs and symptoms, as well as prevention measures, which include draining away stagnant water, sleeping under mosquito nets and wearing long-sleeved clothing at dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most active, to avoid bites. Patients receive free testing and treatment.
Between August 2017 and January 2020, ALIMA provided malaria treatment to more than 140,000 patients via mobile clinics, in areas without any health facilities during this critical season.
Achan Ngong comes from Aroyo, within the city of Aweil. She has eight children.
"I left my home yesterday to come to the clinic," she says. "The triplets were feeling sick; I often struggle to feed them.”
Unable to carry the triplets alone, Achan asked her two sons to help her with the walk.
“We trekked until we were able to finally find a vehicle that offered us a lift."
"Without the mobile clinic, it would have taken us at least another hour to reach the Aweil hospital.”
Atong Deng is a mother of five from the village of Wunliit.
"Three of my children were sick so we came to ALIMA´s mobile clinic in Halbul," she says. "Two of my children tested positive for malaria and the other one for pneumonia."
“I used to go to a clinic that was more than two hours walk away. Thanks to the mobile clinic, I don't have to walk that far.”
Adhel Dhieu Deng is a mother of five from the village of Kouac in Aweil.
"I have been coming to the mobile clinics since they first came here in 2017,” she says. “I bring my children whenever they're not feeling well."
Before the mobile clinics, Adhel had to walk more than two hours to the closest health center, carrying her children on her back.
“I struggled,” she says, “but I had no choice.”
“I came today because one of my children had high fever. The health worker told me he had malaria and gave me the treatment. We have been here many times for the same reason. I´ve had it myself three times. We use mosquito nets back home but it's still not enough. Rainy season is hard.”
In addition to malaria, mobile clinic teams treat patients for other ailments, such as diarrhea, skin lesions, respiratory infections and worms. Children under five can receive routine vaccinations.
The mobile clinics also screen children under 5 for acute malnutrition.
To diagnose malnutrition at its earliest stages and reduce the risk of hospitalisation, mothers are trained to regularly measure the Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) of their children at home, using an easy-to-use tri-colored bracelet. More than 6,000 mothers and caregivers were trained by ALIMA to use the MUAC bracelet in the Aweil area in 2019.
To improve access to sexual and reproductive health care, pregnant women receive free pre- and post-natal checkups at mobile clinic sites. More than 2,000 women benefited from these consultations at the mobile clinic sites in Mapper and Halbul in Aweil in 2019.
"Imagine walking that far while 8-months pregnant! Thanks to this mobile clinic...I can come more regularly for check-ups, so I can be properly monitored."
- Amou Kenyang, 8-months pregnant with her first child
To learn more about ALIMA's mobile clinics in Aweil, watch this video:
© 2026 ALIMA
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