Charity targets 'forgotten' diseases

Working in conjunction with global research bodies and public health authorities, the charity will spend $250 million over the next 12 years to try to come up with seven new drugs. Project Update - 3 Jul 2003

DNDi

DNDi diseases focus

DNDi plans to spend around US$250 million over 12 years to develop 6-7 drugs and several drugs in the pipeline to combat sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease - three killer diseases that threaten a combined 350 million people every year.

Read about these diseases below. Project Update - 3 Jul 2003

DNDi

Raiding the medicine cabinet

Reinventing the economics of the drug industry presents a different challenge for MSF. Can MSF and its partners really succeed where the pharmaceutical giants, and their multi-billion-dollar budgets, have failed? Yes, claims Bernard Pecoul, who heads MSF's Access to Essential Medicines campaign. "It's an alternative model based on user needs and equitable access rather than profit," he says. Project Update - 3 Jul 2003

Kala azar

Drugs for neglected diseases

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative comes amid accusations that the west has ignored the plight of poor patients by either minimising funding or failing to do research on new drugs for diseases that affect them. Project Update - 1 Jul 2003

United States of America

Damp spirits among G8 fresh pledges

An MSF representative described how the rewritten agenda was defended at the summit by the USA and Germany largely to reflect the interests of their pharmaceutical industries. Project Update - 1 Jul 2003

Ethiopia

Nutritional situation in Ethiopia deteriorating

MSF has started a nutritional intervention in Ziway area south of the capital Addis Abeba. The Therapeutic Feeding Centre there cannot handle the influx of severely malnourished children and the situation is alarming. Project Update - 1 Jul 2003

Sierra Leone

New MSF health facility for Liberian refugees

MSF started to build the facility in January due to concerns that refugees were not receiving adequate care through the existing local health structures. Project Update - 27 Jun 2003

Peru

Peru's jail population at far higher risk to HIV/AIDS infection

In Lurigancho Penitentiary's medical facilities, MSF treats 65 cases of HIV/AIDS. However, the prison's seroprevalence index of 2.6 indicates that there are at least 180 possible carriers of the HIV/AIDS in the facility. In this particular prison, inmates are seven times more likely to acquire an infection of HIV / AIDS than on the street. Project Update - 26 Jun 2003

Liberia

Chaos and fear returns to Monrovia as ceasefire is tested to its limits

"As we drove back towards the centre of Monrovia we saw thousands more people removing the precious tarpaulin from their shelters and leaving their homes in the only direction possible: away from the sound of fighting. Little children carrying sacks on their heads heavier than their own skinny bodies, old women stumbling with mattresses along the roads, mothers carrying screaming children and bundles of food" - MSF press officer Lucy Clayton is currently stationed in Monrovia, Liberia. Project Update - 25 Jun 2003

Malawi

Life continues - in spite of HIV

"Africa is dying! Protect yourselves against HIV!". This is how the President of Malawi campaigns for the use of condoms. But already almost a million of the near ten million inhabitants of this country are HIV-positive. The educational programs are not helping any longer. They need medical help to survive. In July 2001, Médecins Sans Frontières began to treat HIV/Aids patients with antiretroviral medicines in the Chiradzulu hospital. Dr Norbert LÃƒÂ¼neborg reports from this pilot project. Project Update - 24 Jun 2003

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Independent medical humanitarian assistance

We provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Our teams are made up of tens of thousands of health professionals, logistic and administrative staff - most of them hired locally. Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of independence and impartiality. We are a non-profit, self-governed, member-based organisation.

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