Field News

With help from a patient and national staff, Katherine Sisterman, a U.S. nurse on her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in northern Central African Republic (CAR) developed a song to teach people about human African trypanosomiasis, also called sleeping sickness or trypano. Here, she describes how the song came to be. Read more »

Rome, November 19, 2009 -- New Italian government policies to curb the influx of migrants have led to a sharp decrease in the number of migrants and refugees arriving by boat to Lampedusa, Italy. As a result, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is withdrawing its team from the island. Between May and October 2008, more than 21,000 migrants and refugees landed on Lampedusa after a perilous journey across the Mediterranean, according to MSF. During the same period this year, MSF teams saw fewer than 200 migrants. MSF is extremely concerned for the fate of migrants reportedly intercepted at sea and prevented from arriving in Italy. Read more »

"The health situation in Sierra Leone is in a state of emergency, with people dying every day because they do not have access to treatment."  Read more »

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is on the rise worldwide and kills around 120,000 each year. The treatment of MDR-TB is very time-consuming and has prohibitively negative side effects. Many patients have difficulties remaining in treatment for up to two years and must at the same time endure the social stigma that comes with being infected by the deadly disease. Read more »

As the World Food Summit draws to a close, the international community once again provides no commitments on tackling childhood malnutrition. World leaders have also failed to commit funds to directly target the malnutrition problem, despite pledges of US $20 billion to support food security made at the l’Aquila G8 meeting earlier this year. Read more »

In the central Somali city of Galkayo, Dr. Abdullahi Adan Mohamoud is working for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to provide health care to a vulnerable population trapped in a conflict-ridden and divided city. In this interview, he explains about the medical work needs in Galkayo and about working as a surgeon in Somalia. Read more »

Located in the bone-dry central Somalia, the city of Galkayo is divided in half by warring militias and separatist regional governments that continuously clash in armed confrontations. Since MSF was forced to evacuate its international staff in 2008 due to insecurity, MSF’s Somali staff has carried on the work of providing medical care to people trapped in a conflict with nowhere else to turn. Read more »

During the weekend of November 6-9, a fierce storm struck El Salvador, triggering floods and mudslides that killed 150 people and displaced more than 13,000. The storm, which is unnamed, came only few days after Hurricane Ida churned along the Atlantic coast of Central America.  Salvadorian authorities have declared a state of emergency in the regions affected and many communities have been isolated for days because of collapsed bridges. Read more »

Rome/New York, November 11, 2009 – Funding by rich countries to combat malnutrition has remained flat for seven years, according to a report released today by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). This barely accounts for three percent of the funds needed to reduce the 3.5 to 5 million annual deaths of children under five attributed to malnutrition. Read more »

“This is the first reported epidemic of dengue fever in Cape Verde and it is huge,” said Dr. Iza Ciglenecki, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Cape Verde. “With globalization, dengue fever is appearing in places where it has previously been unknown. It is the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne disease in the world.” Read more »

Participants at an International Consultative Workshop that took place at the end of October in Swaziland have come up with a series of recommendations to improve and increase the response to the alarming dual epidemic of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) that is claiming thousands of lives every year in the Southern African region and in Swaziland in particular. Read more »

The increase in availability of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) used to treat HIV in recent years, backed by solid funding commitments, has given millions of people in poor countries a new lease on life. This is the case for tens of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi’s southern Thyolo district. Here, Olesi Ellemani Pasulani, clinical officer for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at the Thyolo District Hospital, shares his perspective on how improved access to care has changed the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS and the healthcare workers who treat them. Read more »