On Aug. 24, 2023, the Canadian government finally released an outcomes document from the Pandemic Instrument Partner and Stakeholder Engagement Forum it held March 21 to 22, with more than 160 participants from multiple sectors. We both attended representing Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). During the intervening five months, multiple rounds of negotiations of […]
By Michael Lawson, Humanitarian Affairs Officer for MSF Canada “We have no water, we have no food. We have nothing.” That is how one man standing outside a mobile medical clinic run by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, described the situation he and his family had been living […]
Nearly 40 percent of people in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh have scabies according to the results of a prevalence survey conducted by the health sector in May. In some camps this figure is as high as 70 percent. This reflects what Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has seen in our clinics where we’ve conducted […]
This spring, Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research (SRSR) is holding meetings on Support for the Commercialization of Intellectual Property. More information on these meetings, including submissions, can be found here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/SRSR/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=12062854 MSF is concerned that this discussion overemphasizes the monetization of intellectual property (IP) such as patents while overlooking the importance of societal […]
by Adam R. Houston. Originally published on Policy Options on May 12, 2023 Despite some recent commentary on the federal government’s approach to consulting stakeholders on the proposed pandemic treaty currently being negotiated under the World Health Organization (WHO), little attention has been paid to the positions Canada itself has actually adopted or their potential repercussions. The problem has been fueled […]
Read More… from Canada’s positions on the international pandemic treaty are concerning
By Adam Houston, Medical Policy and Advocacy Officer for MSF Canada One clear lesson from the popular post-apocalyptic television drama The Last of Us is that it is far more enjoyable to vicariously watch a pandemic unfold on TV than experience it yourself. The show is having a cultural moment, including here in Canada where […]
By Julien Potet, Senior Advisor on Tropical Diseases and Neglected Diseases for MSF’s Access Campaign Some diseases are more neglected than others. This is the case with snakebites, which are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths every year worldwide. A new MSF publication in Toxicon X highlights the resources needed to improve the management of […]
Read More… from Snake bites: reflecting on the neglected disease
By Michael Lawson, MSF Canada’s humanitarian affairs officer, and Léo Tremblay, a meteorologist with MSF’s Meteorological and Climate Assistance initiative South Sudan is no stranger to crises. More than eight million people in the country are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of displacement, food insecurity and exposure to violence, […]
By Jason Nickerson, MSF’s Humanitarian Representative to Canada
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By Jason Nickerson, MSF’s Humanitarian Representative to Canada.
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Read More… from Beyond the Headlines: A Canadian’s Testimony from the Central African Republic