Posts tagged medical

Photo: Patients in the waiting area at Koutiala Hospital in Mali. Mali 2012 © Venetia Dearden Conference Briefing Paper: Medical Innovations for Neglected PatientsThere are three fundamental problems with medical innovation today.  First, global public health needs are not in the driving seat. Regardless of how great the needs may be, where commercial potential is weak, there is little “pull” to develop new technologies. The innovation cycle is broken, with few or no incentives for the development of effective, safe, quality, suitable and affordable health technologies—leading to needless suffering and death.  Second, as a result, developing countries must often “make do” with innovation that primarily caters to conditions in developed countries. Medical tools are too often developed first for developed countries and only rolled out in resource limited settings in a second stage.  Third, even when there is enough of a profit incentive to drive innovation—for example when diseases affect both developed and developing countries alike—the resulting products are too often priced out of reach.  Medical innovation must aim to change practice, for the benefit of patients. But ideas, knowledge and inventions can only benefit patients who have access to the fruits of innovation. What is needed, therefore, is not just innovation—but both innovation and access. Download the full report here.

Photo: Patients in the waiting area at Koutiala Hospital in Mali. Mali 2012 © Venetia Dearden

Conference Briefing Paper: Medical Innovations for Neglected Patients
There are three fundamental problems with medical innovation today. 

First, global public health needs are not in the driving seat. Regardless of how great the needs may be, where commercial potential is weak, there is little “pull” to develop new technologies. The innovation cycle is broken, with few or no incentives for the development of effective, safe, quality, suitable and affordable health technologies—leading to needless suffering and death. 

Second, as a result, developing countries must often “make do” with innovation that primarily caters to conditions in developed countries. Medical tools are too often developed first for developed countries and only rolled out in resource limited settings in a second stage. 

Third, even when there is enough of a profit incentive to drive innovation—for example when diseases affect both developed and developing countries alike—the resulting products are too often priced out of reach. 

Medical innovation must aim to change practice, for the benefit of patients. But ideas, knowledge and inventions can only benefit patients who have access to the fruits of innovation. What is needed, therefore, is not just innovation—but both innovation and access.

Download the full report here.

I was not really thinking to be a medical person, but after all of the death I saw and after my treatment, I felt that this is the most important thing that I can now do.
Francis Gatluak, on joining the MSF medical staff after being a patient first.
Photo: A child at MSF’s intensive feeding center in Guidam Roumdji, Maradi region. Niger 2011 © Alessandra Vilas Boas Rotavirus Research Results Show Need to Tailor Vaccines to Improve Their Impact Cape Town/Geneva/New York, November 8, 2012- Research presented today by Epicentre, the epidemiological research arm of MSF and other African researchers, contributes to the growing body of evidence that the two existing rotavirus vaccines may not be best adapted for use in Africa. “Vaccine developers have not taken into account the full rotavirus picture in places that are hardest hit by diarrheal illness and deaths caused by rotavirus,” said Dr. Anne-Laure Page, an epidemiologist at Epicentre. “This study adds to the growing body of research that underscores the need to ensure that vaccines are developed that effectively address the needs of developing countries.” The two available rotavirus vaccines were developed and tested in industrialized countries, and have an efficacy rate of 90 percent against severe diarrhea in these countries, compared to an estimated 50-60 percent in countries in Africa and Asia. The current vaccines are also bulky and have a limited shelf life at room temperature, further making them unsuitable for developing countries that lack adequate refrigeration capacity. “The fact that currently available vaccines are not easy to use in the places that are hardest to reach contributes to the fact that 22 million children born each year do not receive even the basic vaccination package,” said Elder.

Photo: A child at MSF’s intensive feeding center in Guidam Roumdji, Maradi region. Niger 2011 © Alessandra Vilas Boas

Rotavirus Research Results Show Need to Tailor Vaccines to Improve Their Impact

Cape Town/Geneva/New York, November 8, 2012- Research presented today by Epicentre, the epidemiological research arm of MSF and other African researchers, contributes to the growing body of evidence that the two existing rotavirus vaccines may not be best adapted for use in Africa.

“Vaccine developers have not taken into account the full rotavirus picture in places that are hardest hit by diarrheal illness and deaths caused by rotavirus,” said Dr. Anne-Laure Page, an epidemiologist at Epicentre. “This study adds to the growing body of research that underscores the need to ensure that vaccines are developed that effectively address the needs of developing countries.”

The two available rotavirus vaccines were developed and tested in industrialized countries, and have an efficacy rate of 90 percent against severe diarrhea in these countries, compared to an estimated 50-60 percent in countries in Africa and Asia. The current vaccines are also bulky and have a limited shelf life at room temperature, further making them unsuitable for developing countries that lack adequate refrigeration capacity.

“The fact that currently available vaccines are not easy to use in the places that are hardest to reach contributes to the fact that 22 million children born each year do not receive even the basic vaccination package,” said Elder.

Photo: Paraguay © Anna Surinyach Fighting Neglect MSFhas taken a stand for the millions of people affected by visceral leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness and Chagas. These diseases are neglected by drug developers, policy makers, and media, making it difficult to get patients the treatment they need. Treatment is possible with the existing medical tools and drugs, but additional research and development toward new and more effective diagnostics and treatments are desperately needed to address the overwhelming neglect of people whose needs are not met by pharmaceutical companies. Learn more about neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in our Special Report.

Photo: Paraguay © Anna Surinyach

Fighting Neglect

MSFhas taken a stand for the millions of people affected by visceral leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness and Chagas. These diseases are neglected by drug developers, policy makers, and media, making it difficult to get patients the treatment they need. Treatment is possible with the existing medical tools and drugs, but additional research and development toward new and more effective diagnostics and treatments are desperately needed to address the overwhelming neglect of people whose needs are not met by pharmaceutical companies.


Learn more about neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in our Special Report.

The non-medical personnel deserve as much credit as anyone for the medical care provided here. Many people don’t realize how many non-medical people it takes to do what MSF does.
US surgeon David Lauter pays tribute to the logisticians and other MSF staff who make our projects work. Please leave your questions and comments for David in the comments box below his blog post.
Afghanistan: Treating Child Malnutrition in Helmand “She was vomiting and had diarrhea, and she kept losing weight,” says Mariam of her five-month-old granddaughter Nazia. “Her mother just didn’t have enough milk to feed her. We went to a private clinic but they couldn’t help us, and finally we drove here from our home district of Sangin. Nazia is feeling a little better now.” Nazia, who still has a distended belly and a clearly visible rib cage, is one of the patients in the MSF herapeutic feeding center in Boost hospital in Lashkargah, the capital of Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Boost hospital, where MSF has been working since 2009, is one of only two hospitals in all of southern Afghanistan. Helmand is one of the country’s most war-ravaged provinces, and has seen intense fighting over the past decades. It is home to a largely poor, rural population, even if there are signs of a growing middle class in Lashkargah. MSF opened its feeding center in December 2011 to tackle the chronic problem of malnutrition among children in Helmand. This specialized unit helps children on the verge of starvation gain weight through assisted feeding. Photo: An MSF staff member examines a child for malnutrition at Boost hospital. Afghanistan 2012 © Camille Gillardeau

Afghanistan: Treating Child Malnutrition in Helmand

“She was vomiting and had diarrhea, and she kept losing weight,” says Mariam of her five-month-old granddaughter Nazia. “Her mother just didn’t have enough milk to feed her. We went to a private clinic but they couldn’t help us, and finally we drove here from our home district of Sangin. Nazia is feeling a little better now.”

Nazia, who still has a distended belly and a clearly visible rib cage, is one of the patients in the MSF herapeutic feeding center in Boost hospital in Lashkargah, the capital of Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

Boost hospital, where MSF has been working since 2009, is one of only two hospitals in all of southern Afghanistan. Helmand is one of the country’s most war-ravaged provinces, and has seen intense fighting over the past decades. It is home to a largely poor, rural population, even if there are signs of a growing middle class in Lashkargah.

MSF opened its feeding center in December 2011 to tackle the chronic problem of malnutrition among children in Helmand. This specialized unit helps children on the verge of starvation gain weight through assisted feeding.

Photo: An MSF staff member examines a child for malnutrition at Boost hospital.

Afghanistan 2012 © Camille Gillardeau

We fled our village Sunday, a week ago. On that day the attackers arrived in our village. If a house had a roof of metal, they threw gasoline in the house to make it burn. If the roof was made of leaves or grass, they threw fire on the house and burned the people inside.

I hid with my children in the bush while they were burning our house. My sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and mother-in-law were burned alive in their house.

A woman (30) with four children who fled an attack on her village in eastern Congo.

Since April 2012, MSF has treated more than 200 people wounded during clashes between armed groups. Yet the number of patients admitted with bullet wounds or machete cuts only hints at the impact this conflict is having on the health and well-being of people in this troubled region.

Al Jazeera hosts a discussion on “Neglected Tropical Diseases” (NTD)

Is private funding of pharmaceutical drugs the only way to ensure access to treatment for the world’s poorest patients?
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“I welcome the continuous donations by the pharmaceutical industry but I would really challenge them to do more in research and development. We know that only one per cent of drugs developed since the mid-1970s have been for all the tropical diseases and Tuberculosis put together, let alone the NTD.”

- Tido von Schoen-Angerer,
the director of the MSF Access Campaign
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Read the corresponding article here.