Tag Archive for: Doctors Without Borders

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Doctors Without Borders expelled from Myanmar

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Doctors without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontiers, is one of the most respected aid organizations in the world. It was created in 1971 by a group of doctors who desired to have a more direct approach to aiding those in need. It has provided aid to many countries that desperately need it. Doctors without Borders won the Nobel Peace prize in 1999 for its work helping those in war torn countries around the world.

In accepting the award in 1999, former head of the organization Dr. James Orbinski said, “Silence has long been confused with neutrality, and has been presented as a necessary condition for humanitarian action. From its inception, MSF (Medecins Sans Frontiers) was created in opposition to this assumption.”

The situation in Myanmar for the Rohingya could not be more dire and the comments of Orbinski could not be more apt. The Muslim Rohingya are the minority in Myanmar and are one of the most persecuted groups in the world, according to the United Nations.

Doctors Without Borders was an integral part of ensuring that the Rohingya received basic medical care and the services that they desperately need. The situation is more complex however as the government of Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as a legitimate ethnic group and persecutes and block their basic human rights at every turn.

Doctors Without Borders has been providing aid to citizens in Myanmar for the last 22 years, according to CNN, and was the largest non-governmental organization in the Rakhine state where the Rohingya live. The group was banned by the Myanmar authority for allegedly showing a “bias” towards the Rohingya who are termed Bengali by the Myanmar government which views them as illegal aliens.

There is speculation by a number of sources that the ban originated because Doctors without Borders put out a statement regarding a massacre of 44 Rohingya by state security officials. The UN and Doctors Without Borders maintain that the Rohingya were targeted by security forces and a mob of local Buddhist.

Myanmar’s government maintains that just one police officer was killed and no other violence occurred.

Doctors Without Borders was operating medical clinics for basic needs as well as HIV/AIDS clinics that were providing treatment to over 30,000 people. The NGO was Myanmar’s largest supplier of HIV medicine and the lack of treatment for this many could and will have devastating consequences in the long term.

Representative Joe Crowley is an outspoken voice on Myanmar and recently tweeted, “It is the responsibility of the Burmese government to protect its civilians. This is deeply troubling.” The Rohingya need more outspoken representatives in international governments around the world if they are to continue to be under the thumb of Myanmar’s oppressive government.

– Arthur Fuller

Sources: ABC, CNN, Doctors Without Borders, Los Angeles Times, Fox
Photo: Apologetics Press

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Vaccine Logistics: Typhoon Haiyan

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Mere weeks after the confirmation of the first ten cases of poliomyelitis in Syria, Mother Nature dealt the global health community another powerful blow in the form of Typhoon Haiyan.

Some areas of the Philippines are nearly 95 percent destroyed; Doctors Without Borders staff has described the aftermath as reminiscent of the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Hospitals have been ruined, so aid workers have set up temporary health centers to treat wounds and provide much-needed vaccines to locals and returning residents who chose to flee the oncoming storm.

The World Health Organization and the Philippine Department of Health have spearheaded a campaign to vaccinate children under five against measles or polio outbreaks and provide Vitamin A drops to boost immune system strength. All children under 15 years will then receive care if resources allow.  Hard-hit areas are the campaign’s priority. Immediate needs include the set-up of immunization stations, volunteer deployment and acquisition of all necessary vaccines.

Philippine Secretary of Health Enrique Ona guarantees that since “system is shaken but not broken,” a re-launch of widespread vaccinations should not prove impossible.

Nonetheless, in some regions such as Guiuan (to the east of Samar island,) the “cold chain” required for vaccine delivery and preservation has not yet been implemented. This mechanism involves gas and generator powered refrigerators, cold boxes, ice packs and vaccine-cases for areas without power. In the words of Dr. Johan von Schreeb of Doctors Without Borders, the devastated islands “do not have time to wait.”

This refrigeration conundrum arises with each civil conflict or natural disaster that leaves affected regions without power. Though the cold chain concept is effective and familiar to health care providers, current supply and logistics systems were designed thirty years ago, prior to the development of cold chain equipment. Project Optimize (a task force of the WHO and PATH) and UNICEF’s Cold Chain and Logistics Task Force have identified innovative funding for cold chain equipment as a key opportunity for improvement upon today’s vaccine systems.

In order to achieve the Project’s 2020 goals, cold chain equipment, efficiency and monitoring must improve. Health care managers must be able to access performance figures to make informed purchasing and allocation decisions given the limited time span and resources available in health care emergencies; in other words, the current Philippine situation. If local or national health departments allot too many or too few resources to any single immunization station, lives will be lost (due either to a vaccine shortage or to spoliation of vaccines that should have been administered in other areas). Striking this delicate balance requires widespread cooperation between the public and private sector.

Similarly, manufacturers of equipment must be kept abreast of product performance in the field. The implementation of a feedback loop between manufacturer and user would improve product packaging and design. The Project’s 2013 Action Plan suggests beginning with a redesign of cold boxes to maximize the “refrigerant-to-vaccine” ratio to hold more vaccines and insulate them more efficiently.

Improvements to vaccine logistics that reflect needs expressed explicitly by those on the front lines of vaccine campaigns will ensure that doctors such as von Schreeb have the tools to work their magic when disaster strikes.

– Casey Ernstes

Sources: Doctors Without Borders, PATH, The World Health Organization, The World Health Organization
Photo: BBC