Médecins Sans Frontières: Tragedy and Hope
Last night I attended the volunteer presentation at the MSF office here in NYC. The tragic coincidence was the report released earlier in the day that 5 volunteers had been murdered in Afghanistan. For the time being our activities will be suspended nationwide, except for life-saving activities.
The press release adds this analysis which suggests what may have contributed to this incident:
The politicization of aid underway since the fall of the Taliban, condoned by the international community with the tacit acceptance of many non-governmental organizations, has proven dangerous for humanitarian organizations and has undercut Afghan’s access to assistance that is truly needs based. Security has deteriorated and humanitarian agencies have increasingly become targets of attacks aimed against Western presence.
My interest in this meeting was to find out more about the way they administer their various programs and their use of technology for support services. I also have an interest in the development of medications not deemed profitable for the major pharmaceutical companies. During this meeting I found out about DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative), which is an organization working with MSF for exactly this purpose. Their initiatives include providing treatment for sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis), kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), and Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis).
During a conversation I had with the session leader, I found out that this was a different approach that MSF was adopting. In the past, their focus was entirely on providing medical care in areas of dire need. Now, they are implementating public health initiatives such as AIDS relief in the form of ARV (anti-retroviral) therapy which will reach an estimated 25,000 by the end of this year.
4:39:09 PM 
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