Aid blocked and diseases neglected: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) releases 12th top 10 humanitarian crises
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On the medical front, years of success in increasing treatment for the numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS was threatened with punishment in 2009. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced plans to reduce or limit funding.
"Just when more and more people were accessing crucial medicines and medical experts were acknowledging the need to put people on treatment sooner, patients will be turned away from clinics because the funding just won't be there," said Dr. Fournier. "The timing could not be worse."
The neglect also extends to childhood malnutrition, a treatable disease that is the underlying cause of up to half of the annual ten million preventable deaths of children under five each year. Global leaders gathered at the World Food Summit in Rome in 2009 failed to commit to combating the disease, which groups like MSF have shown can be prevented and treated by providing growing children with proper foods that meet their nutritional requirements.
Right now, international assistance to fight malnutrition amounts $350 million dollars, while the World Bank estimates $11.8 billion is required to adequately combat the disease in 36 high burden countries. Additionally, most food assistance is made up of costly and inefficient in-kind donations containing products of poor nutritional value that must be shipped overseas. Resources could be better spent on obtaining nutritionally appropriated foods closer to their source.
Other diseases, such as Chagas, kala azar, sleeping sickness, and Buruli ulcer continue to be neglected, with very few new commitments to expanding access to available treatment or carrying out research for much needed newer and more effective drugs.
"We have seen that the international community is able to quickly mobilize extensive resources in the fight against the H1N1 pandemic, said Dick van der Tak, executive director of MSF Hong Kong. "It would be fantastic if a similar commitment could be given to combat other diseases claiming millions of lives each year."
MSF began producing the "Top Ten" list in 1998, when a devastating famine in southern Sudan went largely unreported in media. Drawing on MSF's emergency medical work, the list seeks to generate greater awareness of the magnitude and severity of crises that may or may not be reflected in media accounts.
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