Médecins Sans Frontières

Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organisation that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 80 countries. In countries where health structures are insufficient or even non-existant, MSF collaborates with authorities such as the Ministry of Health to provide assistance. MSF works in rehabilitation of hospitals and dispensaries, vaccination programmes and water and sanitation projects. MSF also works in remote health care centres, slum areas and provides training of local personnel.

Many people believe that modern medicine is continuing to significantly improve global health. Polio has been nearly eradicated, smallpox eliminated, and it will only be a matter of time before cures for all other diseases are found. However, this confidence is misplaced and based more on history than reality. Today, one- third of the world’s population lacks access to essential medicines; in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia this figure rises to one-half.

MSF is an independent humanitarian medical aid agency committed to two objectives: providing medical aid wherever it is needed, regardless of race, religion, politics or sex and raising awareness of the plight of the people they help.

Experience has shown that it is possible to run successful paediatric HIV programmes in rural African settings, yet less than 10 percent of patients on life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are children, field officers of the international medical NGO, Mdecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), have said.

A new HIV drug has shown promising results when used in conjunction with existing combination therapy and could increase the options for those developing resistance to treatment.

New York - The staggering human toll taken by tuberculosis (TB) and malnutrition as well as the devastation caused by wars in the Central African Republic (CAR), Sri Lanka and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are among the Top Ten Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2006, according to the year-end list released recently by the international humanitarian medical aid organization Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF).

MSF and MSF Podcasts : Toronto - Two new studies released by Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto demonstrate good outcomes in antiretroviral treatment of children living with HIV/AIDS across a wide array of resource-poor settings, but that paediatric drug formulations are excessively overpriced, costing up to six times more than adult equivalents.

Most patients whose lives had been saved by first-line treatment will be abandoned the moment they need second-line drugs unless governments pull their heads out of the sand and start tackling this issue, says Ibrahim Umoru, a peer educator working for MSF in Lagos, Nigeria, who had to switch treatment in 2006 after having developed resistance to first-line.

Humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) urged U.S. drugmaker Abbot Laboratories Inc. on Wednesday to make a new HIV drug accessible in developing countries, especially Africa.

Medecins Sans Frontieres seeks a creative and dynamic person who enjoys working in close contact with the people, and can develop innovative ideas for education and advocacy.