Imminent Diseases: The Warning by Doctors Without Borders

Posted on: Fri 19-02-2016

On January 25 this year, the humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), otherwise known as Doctors without Borders, gave a warning to African governments regarding imminent fatal epidemics such as measles and meningitis. Speaking at a World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, MSF’s operational health advisor, Dr Monica Rull, stated: “The threat posed by emerging and re-emerging virus and parasite-spread diseases such as dengue fever, Zika, Ebola and Kala Azar needs to be faced. We know that thousands of lives will be at risk with the outbreaks, but we also know that the means to prevent these deaths exist. Cholera, malaria, measles and meningitis epidemics will also take place this year in a dimension that we have never seen before. They will incapacitate and kill many if nothing is done.”

Dengue fever is a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes and causes fever and acute pains in the joints. A virus carried by mosquitoes also causes Zika, whose symptoms include fever, joint and muscle pains, and conjunctivitis. The latter is spreading like wildfire in Latin America and has been a major concern for disease control globally. West Africa has suffered from an epidemic of Ebola virus disease, and Nigeria turned out to be one of the early success stories in combating the disease in 2014. Ebola is a severe and often fatal illness, while Kala-azar is the second largest parasitic killer in the world and affects the liver, spleen, bone marrow and lymph nodes.

Sadly, the MSF said current strategies to prevent major disease outbreaks show only limited success. Although the WHO has an early warning and response system to deal with epidemics, its abilility to handle such outbreaks varies from place to place. While it worked in some cases, it has fallen short in others. MSF’s deputy medical director, Tammam Aloudat, noted that the “delay in Ebola response is an example of where a high stakes outbreak didn’t attract the early and vigorous response it required. This is even more likely to be the case for smaller and less ‘media attractive’ outbreaks.”

We salute the heroic work that the MSF continues to carry out across the globe. In particular, we recognise its role in combating the Ebola virus in West Africa. The current warning is timely and we call on African governments to take heed. Nigeria owes the MSF a debt of gratitude for its role in several emergency health situations in the country. We recall that the MSF was created in 1971, in the aftermath of the Biafra secession, by a small group of French doctors and journalists who believed that all people had the right to medical care regardless of race, religion, creed or political affiliation, and that their needs outweighed respect for national borders. In 2015, over 30,000 professionals, mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, logistic experts, water and sanitation engineers and administrators, volunteered their time and skills at great risk under the MSF to provide medical aid in over 70 countries.

Indeed, the MSF has risen to the challenge posed to health by globalisation. Globalisation facilitates the movement of people across the globe, thereby aiding the rapid spread of epidemics. Thus, countries are not only required to develop their own health infrastructure but also to collaborate with other countries and the WHO to address epidemics. They are required to be vigilant and to take immediate steps to prevent the spread of such epidemics where they occur. It is generally established that collaboration across countries holds a better promise of combating epidemics than the closure of borders to regulate the movement of persons, as demonstrated in the global involvement in combating the Ebola virus in West Africa.

Previous experiences with Ebola showed that many health systems in Africa are weak and not sufficiently prepared to deal with such epidemics. A number of measures have been recommended to reduce the risk of epidemics, including improved health infrastructure, health education, rapid alert and response, and free medical care for sick people. We call on African governments to take immediate steps to implement these recommendations.

Source: Nigerian Tribune News

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