MSF worldwide work highlight (24/6 – 7/7)

 

MSF teams in Batangafo distributed essential items, including plastic sheeting, mosquito nets and blankets to more than five thousand people who were forced to flee their villages after they were burned down during heavy fighting with nomadic herdsmen coming from Chad. Disputes between Central African farmers and nomadic pastoralist tribes from Chad have been ongoing over the last decade, when the nomads come to CAR in search of pastures for their herds.

 

Tens of thousands of refugees and returnees in Chad, who have fled violent clashes in neighbouring Darfur since early January, are still desperately in need of clean water, proper shelter and access to healthcare. MSF runs health facilities and provides mobile clinic services in the area. To date, medical teams have consulted 4,700 patients, and more than 200 children have been treated for malnutrition.

 

In eastern Chad, MSF teams vaccinated against measles for 257,000 children in Ouaddai region and Wadi Fira region. Nearly 800 sick children were treated.

 

Around 1 year ago, MSF opened a primary healthcare facility dedicated to women and children under five in Darvazeh Ghar, one of the poorest districts of Tehran. Merchants, hurried customers and street vendors rub shoulders with drug addicts, prostitutes and street children there. Obtaining medical care can be particularly difficult for these highly at-risk populations. 

 

MSF, working with the Ministry of Health, organised intensive care training for local doctors in Gaza. The goal was to develop the medical staff’s knowledge, skills and attitude so that they were better equipped to treat seriously ill patients. Owing to the Israeli blockade in place since 2007, Palestinian doctors find it very difficult to leave Gaza to receive specialist training.

 

MSF started a project in the capital, Port Moresby, to provide medical and psychosocial care to survivors of family and sexual violence. In addition to the project in Port Moresby, MSF works in Tari running a Family Support Centre. MSF also supports primary and maternal-child healthcare in the Buin Health Centre in Bougainville. 

 

The price of first- and second-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) to treat HIV are falling because of increased competition among generic producers, but newer ARVs continue to be priced astronomically high, according to the annual report Untangling the Web of ARV Price Reductions, released by MSF. A second report called Putting HIV Treatment to the Test, which looks at the price of HIV viral load tests, was also released. 

 

MSF welcomed new WHO guidelines for HIV treatment and called for the improvements to be rapidly implemented, enabling people and programme outcomes in developing countries to benefit. MSF also stressed that increased international support will be needed. WHO recommendations include earlier antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people living with HIV, improved protocols to prevent HIV from being transmitted from mother to child, and regular and more effective monitoring of people’s ‘viral load’ to ensure treatment is working.

 

Countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement with the US should follow Malaysia’s lead in refusing harmful intellectual property proposals and assuring that people will continue to be able to access affordable medicines in the future, stressed the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC), Third World Network (TWN), Positive Malaysian Treatment Access & Advocacy Group (MTAAG+) and MSF at the International AIDS Society conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.