My Virtual Mission

On a blazingly hot July morning in 2006, a blue and black cloth bundle fluttered in the breeze. In eastern Africa, these bundles are used to trap tsetse flies and prevent the spread of sleeping sickness. Along the busy sidewalks of University Avenue, Toronto, they pointed the way to the launch of a new Médecins Sans Frontières Expo. Like a mini-museum on wheels, the MSF Expo is an interactive touring exhibit housed in a 48-foot (15-meter) trailer. Visitors are invited on a "virtual mission" with MSF.

Upon my arrival, a friendly MSF volunteer spun a wheel that decided my job and my destination. The spin made me a logistician, headed to a MSF mission in the Andes of Bolivia. I was handed a card that described my journey into the country, then ushered into the trailer where I could learn more about my task. The people of the Andes suffer from extreme poverty, and subsist on an average daily income of US$3 per day. They are also faced with the deadly threat of Chagas disease, a neglected disease that few of us in North America have even heard of. Chagas, or American trypanosomiasis, is transmitted by insects. Approximately 1.8 million Bolivians are infected with the disease, and another 3.7 million are at risk. The disease has both an acute phase and a chronic phase, and can damage the heart, nervous system, and digestive system, and often leads to death. Efforts to treat Chagas are hampered by difficulties in its diagnosis, and the fact that the only two available medicines (nifurtimox and benznidazol) have severe side-effects and are frequently ineffective.

Other interactive tours take visitors to the fringes of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, where MSF teams battle antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis, and to Kambia, Sierra Leone, where MSF volunteers combat malaria and HIV, and work to bring basic healthcare to displaced people. In Khayelitsha, South Africa, the dual threat of combined HIV and TB infections is the most urgent health crisis.

Treating HIV and AIDS has long been a MSF priority, since about 95% of the world's 40 million HIV-positive patients live in developing countries. In the field, MSF teams have given anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) to nearly 60,000 patients in 30 countries, and provided care to the sick, AIDS orphans, and others affected by the pandemic. MSF is lobbying developed countries for AIDS medication for infants and children, inexpensive second-line ARVs, and more medicines to poor nations.

Another focus of the Expo was the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. MSF volunteers work in war zones, remote regions, and areas of extreme poverty, and often the greatest obstacle to providing care is the lack of essential medicines. Approximately one-third of the world's population lacks access to critically needed drugs. Currently, drug research and development is centered around the diseases that are prevalent in developed countries, and is focused on generating the maximum amount of profit for the drug companies. Desperately needed new medicines such as more effective treatments for Chagas and pediatric formulas for ARVs are simply not developed because the need for them exists in poor countries. According to MSF Canada's Acting General Director Ben Chapman, about 1,100 new medicines were developed from 1976–1996, yet only 12 of those were for the treatment of tropical diseases. Other barriers to drug access include the prohibitively high cost of medication, the limited amount of drugs exported to developing countries, and the fact that many patients are unable to travel to faraway clinics for treatments.

Scattered among the boards of information were pieces of actual field equipment, such as a crammed medicine cabinet, a simple wash station, and medical waste incinerator that resembled a giant garbage can with a chimney on top. Patients' testimonies and photos put a human face to the diseases and need, and also showed the joys that recovery brings. At the end of my journey, MSF volunteers were on-hand to answer questions and share their experiences from the field. From place to place, country to country, the message was the same. Too many people are suffering from the ravages of disease, and not enough help is available.

The most poignant section of the exhibit was a wall mounted with four clocks, each with only a second hand. Accompanying the steady tick-tocking of the clocks were four facts:

"Every 10 minutes, one person dies of Chagas."

"Every minute, a child dies of AIDS."

"Every 30 seconds, a child dies of malaria."

"Every 15 seconds, someone dies of AIDS."

"It's time to act!"

For more information see: • US: Doctors without Borders • Canada: Médecins Sans Frontières • International: Médecins Sans Frontières Also see other MSF articles: • Across Careers and Continents • I Got to Decide • What is a Hospital? • "Keep Up the Fight, Nigerians!" • Working With MSF

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