MSF info - AIDS

"The worst is still to come in southern Africa. The region is facing human disaster on a scale it has never seen before." - Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director, UNAIDS Project Update - 13 Feb 2002

Afghanistan

BBC Health Matters interview with Maureen van Rossun du Chattel

MSF paediatrician Maureen van Rossun du Chattel, who was working in Afghanistan for three months prior to the evacuation following the September 11 attacks on New York city. A look at the conditions faced by volunteers in Afghanistan as well as a glance at what motivates people to volunteer with MSF. Project Update - 17 Dec 2001

Diarrhoeal disease

Diarrhoea definition and MSF treatment

"The scary thing about diarrhoea is how quickly it can kill a young child. Just a few squirts, a couple of vomits, and all the life has drained out of them. But then what I really love is watching how quickly they recover, almost in front of your eyes, once you get some fluids into them." - MSF field doctor, Uganda Project Update - 1 Jan 2001

Cholera

Cholera definition and MSF treatment

"Usually the patient is moribund, eyes sunken back into the skull, literally minutes away from death. It may be a small child, or a mother, or an elderly man. Then comes the struggle to find a vein, and the first anxious moments as the IV drip starts to run. Always then I must move on to the next bed, and I may not have time to come back until many hours later. By then the patient has come back to life - sitting up, drinking, even managing a smile. It is the nearest thing to a miracle that a doctor ever gets to perform." - MSF field doctor, Bangladesh Project Update - 1 Jan 2001

Diarrhoeal disease

How diarrhoea kills

Diarrhoea causes a person to lose both water and electrolytes. Electrolytes are the salts such as sodium and potassium which are essential to the functioning of every cell in the body. If vomiting accompanies the diarrhoea then these losses are accelerated. Project Update - 28 Sep 2000

South Sudan

MSF responds to emergency in Bieh State

The south Sudanese state of Beih, in south-eastern Upper Nile on the border with Ethiopia, is being struck by several severe health and nutritional problems at once. The area, about the size of Belgium, is currently experiencing an exceptionally bad hunger period, exacerbated by a meningitis epidmic, outbreaks of shigella and a lack of health services. Press Release - 27 Jun 2000

Water and sanitation

Action Today for the people around the Aral Sea

In less than 25 years, central Asia's Aral Sea, once the fourth largest inland body of water in the world, has dried up to 50% of its original surface area. The two rivers that feed the sea have largely been diverted since the 1950s to irrigate Soviet cotton fields. Project Update - 17 Mar 2000

Uzbekistan

Charity calls for help for people of Aral Sea area

The charity Médecins Sans Frontières is making a plea this weekend for
additional help for the four million people living in the area surrounding
the Aral Sea who have poor access to potable water. In the Media - 17 Mar 2000

Nicaragua

MSF begins emergency intervention in Nicaragua

Press Release - 2 Nov 1998

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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