Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has started to work again in Afghanistan after an absence of five years. MSF's General Director (Belgium) Christopher STOKES, has extensive work experience in the country, and he has recently been back to take stock of the MSF projects. In this article, he explains...
Asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are bearing the brunt of increasingly restrictive policies which take a toll on their physical and mental health. Escaping conflict, deprivation or widespread violations of human rights, they endure long and dangerous journeys to Europe. Yet when they...
Thai authorities are expelling the 4,000 Hmong remaining in the Huai Nam Khao camp in Thailand's Petchabun province to Laos. No third-party organisation is present at the site. MSF, which left the camps in May 2009 following military pressure, had denounced the forced repatriation policy. The...
The people of Southern Sudan are trapped in a worsening crisis, following the most violent year since the 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war with the North. However, the response to the escalating emergency is inadequate, says international medical relief...
Civilians attacked, bombed, and cut off from aid in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), along with stagnant funding for treating HIV/AIDS and ongoing neglect of other diseases, were among the worst emergencies in 2009, the international...
In a decisive step to improve access to medicines in the developing world, the Executive Board of UNITAID, the international health financing agency, has given the green light for a patent pool for AIDS medicines to open for business. "Although these are early days, the patent pool could become a...
The number of children under treatment for severe malnutrition has reached an all time high in MSF's nutritional programme in Galcayo, Somalia. More than 1,300 children are now under care in MSF nutritional projects in South Galcayo Hospital and North Galcayo Feeding Centre. That is almost half the...
