Posts tagged design

Nicola Swann snapped these images in the ‘Jungle’ - the name given to the overcrowded Calais camp in Northern France packed with refugees and migrants wanting to move on to the UK.

High tensions exist in this small space housing somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 people. Even with a difficult and uncertain journey ahead of them, these refugees still try to improve their situation where possible. Painting murals on schools, small business, and restaurants that they have opened, showing their determination for a brighter future as they wait for news on filed asylum claims. 

French authorities began eviction and destruction in the southern portion of the camp during late February. During the tumultuous scene, MSF mobilized a medical clinic to aid the wounded. They have previously made threats to dismantle and evict the northern part of the camp, but today local authorities are slowly making investments in water and sanitation services, which remain a major concern.

Creating Art in the Jungle of Calais 

Damaging intellectual property rules in the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) would give pharmaceutical companies longer monopolies over brand name drugs. Companies would be able to charge high prices for longer periods of time. And it would be much harder for generic companies to produce cheaper drugs that are vital to people’s health. We need your help:http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/take-action/tpp/

Should going deaf be the price you pay to recover from drug-resistant TB? We need better treatment now! http://www.msfaccess.org/TBmanifesto/

The Photographer is a graphic novel documenting our clandestine cross-border operation in Afghanistan to assist those stranded without medical care in areas hardest-hit after the Soviet invasion in 1979.

Find this and more books about our work here.

Bayer Attempting To Block Affordable Patented Drugs In India

German pharmaceutical company Bayer is challenging an intellectual property decision in India that allows more affordable generic drugs to be produced in the interests of public health. You can see the extent of the price differences in this image.

Learn more about the case.

Graphic by Will Owen

Reblog to help us raise awareness of the plight of Sudanese refugees living in appalling conditions in camps in South Sudan. They are falling ill and dying at rates alarmingly above accepted international standards for emergencies.

Join us next week for a live webcast discussion on the refugee crisis in South Sudan, featuring recently returned emergency field staff. Wednesday, August 29, 8p ET. Register here.

The Need For Urgent HIV and TB Treatment in Myanmar.

Tens of thousands of people living with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) in Myanmar are unable to access lifesaving antiretroviral therapy (ART), a dire situation exacerbated by the recent cancellation of a new round of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

“Lives in the Balance,” a report from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), outlines the situation for people affected by HIV and tuberculosis (TB), with a special focus on multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), in Myanmar today. It calls for urgent funding and assistance to be made available by the international donor community to help Myanmar close the devastating gap between people’s need and people’s access to treatment for HIV and TB.

Infographic by Will Owen

This week, we’re excited to be sending you updates from the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington DC.

We’re kicking the conference off today with a satellite session on global innovation. This and other events will be webcast live at http://aids2012.msf.org/.

The International AIDS Conference is the world’s most attended conference on HIV and AIDS. It’s happening next week, July 22 - 27, in Washington, D.C., and more than 40 members of our staff will be there highlighting the models of care, tools, and policies necessary to get the best treatment to the most people.

Follow us for updates from the conference!

Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing fighting in Sudan are continuing to face a full-blown humanitarian crisis, with people dying from a lack of water, adequate medical care, and shelter as they seek refuge in already-overcrowded camps.

Photo: South Sudan 2012 © Sally McMillen/MSF

Over the past three years, MSF teams have witnessed a rather astonishing rise in the number of malaria cases in Democratic Republic of Congo. For its part, MSF is now responding to outbreaks in six separate provinces in the east and north of the country, but a wider, more concerted effort is urgently needed to battle this potentially fatal disease that traditionally afflicts the young and the infirm. Learn more.

Infographic by will owen.

The Avoidable Crisis of Maternal Death

MSF makes it a priority to provide lifesaving, emergency obstetric care in both acute and chronic humanitarian crises. MSF teams strive to address the five main causes of maternal death: hemorrhage, sepsis, unsafe abortion, hypertensive disorders, and obstructed labour.

In a conflict or crisis, pregnant women are even more vulnerable because health services have collapsed, are inadequate, or are totally non-existent. But these women need access to quality emergency obstetric care whether they live in a conflict zone, in a refugee camp, or under plastic sheeting after a devastating earthquake.

In fact, they need the same help that all pregnant women facing a complication need: access to appropriate medical assistance—skilled medical staff, drugs, and equipment—to save their life and the life of their baby.

Conflict, epidemics, natural disasters, or the complete breakdown of a country’s health system are crises faced by MSF’s millions of patients around the world every day. But a maternal death: that’s the avoidable crisis.

Infographic by Will Owen

Tuberculosis  (TB) is often thought of as a disease of the past, but an ongoing resurgence makes it very much an issue of the present day and age.

TB is caused by a bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, that the World Health Organization says infects one third of the world’s population. Between 5 and 10 percent of infected people develop the disease and become contagious at some point in their lives. (For those with HIV or AIDS, however, the rate is much higher.)

The disease usually develops in the lungs, although there are extra-pulmonary cases where the bacilli infect other parts of the body, usually the lymph nodes, bones, central nervous system, and cardiovascular and gastrointestinal systems. Major symptoms of TB are: prolonged cough, bloody expectorations, chest pain, and changes in a person’s general health status. Coughing, sneezing, talking, and spitting can all spread the bacilli into the air, where they can remain viable for several hours before being inhaled by another person.

Infographic by better-things.co.uk

Tuberculosis in 2012Tuberculosis (TB) is often thought of as a disease of the past, but an ongoing resurgence makes it very much an issue of the present day and age.

New data suggests that the global scope of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is much larger than previously estimated, requiring a concerted international effort to combat this deadlier form of the disease.

MSF is calling on governments, international donors, and drug companies to fight the spread of drug-resistant TB with new financing and new efforts to develop effective and affordable diagnostic tools and drugs. Far shorter and less toxic drug regimens are needed, along with currently non-existent formulations for children, and a point-of-care diagnostics test. Regulatory measures need to be enforced to prevent further spread of the disease due to mismanagement by practitioners.

Infographic by better-things.co.uk