Hi *|NAME|* ,
We hope the new season has begun well for you. The last month has been quite eventful for us; we had very alarming news coming in from East Ghouta,India released it’s first-ever national anti-tuberculosis drug resistance survey and preparations are underway for the upcoming monsoon in Bangladesh’s refugee camp.
On World TB Day India’s Ministry of Health released the “Report of the First National Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance Survey”. The survey is the largest national drug-resistant (DR) TB survey ever conducted by any country in the world and has revealed some disconcerting findings. According to the report more than 6% of all TB patients in India have multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). Based on the estimates in the Global Tuberculosis Report 2017, the estimated number of MDR-TB in India is 147,000, accounting for one-fourth of the global burden.
Furthermore, resistance to the class of drugs called fluoroquinolones was found to be almost 22%. This means there are 30,000 DR-TB patients who need immediate access to better treatment regimens, including the new drugs bedaquiline and/or delamanid. It’s worth noting that by September 2017, 698 people with extensively drug-resistant (XDR and pre-XDR) TB were initiated on bedaquiline-containing regimens in five states of India.
We think the findings of this report will be very useful and need to be translated into action to scale up DR-TB testing and treatment.
“The survey reaffirms that high levels of resistance to fluoroquinolones exist in India, and this is a matter of grave concern because this is associated with treatment failure and death, for people who are resistant to this class of drugs. We constantly struggle with patients having resistance to both fluoroquinolones and second line injectables approaching our Mumbai clinic for treatment. High rates of resistance to these drugs, limit our options to create an effective treatment regimen. Although the national TB program has been planning and rolling out diagnostics and new drugs in the past year, there is a need to speed up and broaden access to effective treatment through expansion of Drug Susceptibility Testing (DST) and patient centred models of care. This will not only save lives, but can also reduce the risk of transmission, including to family members. ” Dr Stobdan Kalon, MSF Medical Coordinator in India.
While India is taking steps to counter a growing public health emergency, in Bangladesh’s refugee camps health conditions are alarming and deadly outbreaks of communicable diseases such as measles and diphtheria have already occurred. At last count, we had treated more than 4,690 people for diphtheria in the Cox’s Bazar district, most of them aged between five and 14 years. During the peak of the outbreak, MSF ran three dedicated health facilities.You can take a look at some photographs from the project here.
|
|
|
Kishatara a 7-year-old Rohingya girl with her 50-year-old father Sobo Alam
Kishatara was hospitalised in Rubber Garden diphtheria treatment center in January.
“I don’t have diphtheria anymore, but we know that if we feel sick we need to reach the health center or look for the right organisation. We are still worried. Other diseases could affect us: like diarrhoea or skin diseases. And when the rain comes our house will be full of water, as we sleep on the ground. We really feel unsafe." Copyright: Sara Creta/MSF
|
|
|
|
|
The Kutupalong-Balukhali expansion site continues to expand west where the land consists of remote, hilly terrain that has been stripped of trees and vegetation. Overcrowding and congestion in the site is of major concern, leaving insufficient space for critical infrastructure and facilities. As the settlements continue to expand, refugees face unequal access to basic services. Without adequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene, communicable disease outbreaks are inevitable. Rohingya have extremely low routine immunization coverage as a result of poor access to healthcare in Myanmar.
We are preparing for approaching monsoon rains and other natural hazards which may lead to deaths in the camps, with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya at risk of disease outbreaks and aid disruptions. We are worried that current shelters and structures will be unable to withstand extreme weather conditions such as heavy flooding or cyclones, and will not provide adequate protection to the most vulnerable refugees. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation services is insufficient and unequally distributed throughout the camp, which increases their vulnerability. We have also noticed a steady increase in cases of acute jaundice syndrome now at our facilities.
To mitigate the impact on healthcare in the region, MSF has opened a new hospital at the heart of Kutupalong-Balukhali camp that provides refuge to some 700,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The hospital has an emergency room, an intensive care unit, inpatient departments for adults and children, a maternity department with a neo-natal care unit, an isolation unit for patients with infectious diseases and an intensive therapeutic feeding centre for severely malnourished children—of whom there are few, but whose numbers may well increase during the monsoon season.
|
|
|
|
View of the construction site of the MSF hospital. MSF has built a 100 bed hospital in the middle of the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp which opened on April 14. Copyright: MSF
|
|
In another part of the world; Syria’s East Ghouta region has been under siege. While the frontlines of battle have moved, and as the Syrian government has taken swathes of territory in the East Ghouta battle, hospitals and clinics we support have been evacuated. From 20 facilities we were supporting a week ago, we are no longer able to support any hospital in East Ghouta.
"The intensity of the war in East Ghouta is finding the limits of our ability to provide assistance, The remaining pre-positioned MSF medical stock, based in the southern enclave of East Ghouta, is now in an area under Syrian government control. The difficulties moving medical supplies because of the bombing and shelling, and the high speed of the military advance, meant that there was insufficient time to distribute the remaining items to facilities still in the besieged areas, where little or no medical supply is permitted to enter by the Syrian government. With extremely reduced medical support capacity, we continue to offer what technical and moral support we can to the medics who are struggling to maintain some life-saving medical care in circumstances that are unimaginably awful." says Lorena Bilbao, Syria Operations Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Read this series of WhatsApp messages from a doctor we have been supporting in East Ghouta to one of the doctors in the MSF Syria support programme, based outside of Syria.
Ths war in Syria has entered it’s eighth year affecting millions of people. Dr. Mukul an MSF surgeon shared a story about Zehra; one of the millions of children in Syria who have been caught in the middle of a bloody war that they do not understand.A graphic novel was illustrated by The Quint based on his interaction with Zehra at a MSF hospital in Ramtha,Jordan. You can take a look at the story here.
.
|
|
MSF India Media Fellowship 2018
The MSF Media Fellowship will fully fund reporting assignments for one journalist who can demonstrate the potential for incisive and original reporting on public health and medical humanitarian issues that are concerns for MSF.
The organisation will provide access to MSF field work, advocacy and research material to the fellow.The 2018 MSF Media Fellowship will have cross-national coverage on access to life saving medicines focusing on India and South Africa.
For more information please read here
|
|
|
Know someone in your newsroom who would be interested in our stories? Click on the link below or email us at aditi.sonrexa@new-delhi.msf.org
|
|
|
|
