MSF worldwide work highlight (5/8-18/8)

The US Food and Drug Administration approved the new HIV drug dolutegravir on 13 Aug, but drug’s producer ViiV's indicating it would pursue a ‘tiered-pricing’ strategy that will keep the drug out of reach for people who need it, limiting the use and sale of generic versions to only 67 countries, excluding many low- and middle-income countries where millions of people with HIV live. MSF questioned when people in developing countries would be able to access this promising new drug. 

 

The recent invalidation by China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of one of the patents on tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), an essential medicine to treat HIV and hepatitis B, is a welcome step to reduce barriers that prevent access to affordable generic versions in China, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). 

 

MSF has been forced to suspend medical activities in the town of Pinga and its immediate surroundings in the east of the country after a targeted threat to the safety of its humanitarian staff. The suspension will worsen an already dire health and humanitarian situation in the Pinga area. 

 

Since the end of 2012, Katsina State in northern Nigeria has experienced a measles outbreak, which has just ended after lasting 28 weeks. MSF supported the authorities by providing epidemiological surveillance and case management in Katsina’s 34 local government areas.

 

After working continuously in Somalia since 1991, MSF announced the closure of all its programs in Somalia on 14 August, the result of extreme attacks on its staff in an environment where armed groups and civilian leaders increasingly support, tolerate, or condone the killing, assaulting, and abducting of humanitarian aid workers. While MSF remains committed to addressing these tremendous needs through medical care and humanitarian assistance, all actors in Somalia must demonstrate through their actions a willingness and ability to facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance to the Somali people and respect for the safety of the humanitarian aid workers who risk their lives to care for them.

 

On 5 August, a group of armed men attacked a car belonging to MSF on a main road outside Juba. Two MSF staff members were seriously injured, one of them died from his injuries two days later. MSF is outraged by this unprovoked attack on a humanitarian organisation that has been working in South Sudan for over thirty years. 

 

While planning to immunise children against pneumococcal diseases in Yida camp, MSF faced multiple barriers trying to purchase newer vaccines at an affordable price and was left struggling to navigate bureaucratic policies that exclude the needs of conflict-affected populations. MSF warned that Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) is neglecting the roll out of new vaccines among crisis-affected children.

 

MSF was forced to withdraw its team on 31 July from Al-Salam Hospital in Amran governorate, after an escalation of violent attacks against its personnel and facilities. MSF is calling upon all actors in Yemen to respect the safety of medical facilities and personnel, and not to involve medical actors as bargaining tools in personal disputes, so that the provision of medical care is not affected.