This is our favorite charity, just to note that I have a certain bias in the following diary. We would encourage you to donate.
Since the outbreak of the current Ebola epidemic Médecins Sans Frontières has been warning that the current outbreak was different from the previous outbreaks of the disease.
Normally I am a great supporter of Dr Margaret Chan head of the World Health Organization and in general of the organization itself, however we are talking about one branch of that organization at the moment.
Now some of you know that I have worked in this area for various organizations in the past and know from first hand experience the political corruption rife within the area. The Koch brothers are amateurs when compared to direct political interference in Africa. Dr Luis Sambo heads the WHO in this area and does not have to report to Dr Margaret Chan. The appointments in Africa are politically motivated and technically weak, Hence the whole response to the current epidemic has been poor and totally inadequate. The WHO organization needs to take direct control of its African branch by cleaning out the politically motivated corruption within this area.
Those of you who know Sub Saharan Africa will understand the poverty and lack of even basic health care that prevails. Couple these with the diseases endemic to the region and political corruption, then failure to contain an epidemic is almost guaranteed.
Médecins Sans Frontières is an early warning system and should be immediately consulted by all governments and the UN/WHO they are both technically and logistically gifted and the people I know within the organization could not give a damn about the politics.
The world only seems to care about Africa when it can be exploited for its resources, Both conflict and when they can be be contained diseases are of little import. It's is not as if Ebola [fully identified in the mid 1970s] was unknown [studied for its chemical warfare possibilities] previously it was just not profitable to consider doing anything about it before the current panic. The same thing could be said about HIV where the virus probably jumped the species barrier in Western Africa [there are other theories related to treatments for other diseases and unsterilized conditions in hospitals].
My belief is the the WHO needs reinforcing and not dismantling and the only way to to this is to have the rest of the world actually care about Sub Saharan Africa on a more frequent basis. The treatment of disease is not a for profit enterprise it is a humanitarian one. If the world can afford a multi-trillion dollar war effort and the trillions in medical expenses it generates then it can afford a few tens of billions to develop treatments for disease and treatment centers themselves? The centers should be where the problems are and not where the shiny buildings would look nice and be a feather in the cap of the local politician.
Médecins Sans Frontières is a great charity, but it is the response to an existing emergency but the world and its people merit a better way of actually resolving the causes and spread of disease. Even the poorest people deserve the best of what we can do, it is not all about the money and power.
Perhaps a valuable lesson can be learnt from the current epidemic [even though HIV, bubonic plague, flu etc should have done that already] that the world is connected and the profit may well lie in prevention rather than panic.
Just a thought
To Donate to Médecins Sans Frontières
You can do so from anywhere in the world