Doctors Without Borders was founded to save lives and take action. Likewise, it has treated tens of millions of people since 1971. It was founded by a small group of young doctors, and they were known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In English, Doctors without Borders. It began when Raymond Borel and Philippe Bernier, journalists from the medical review Tonus, appealed to create a band of doctors to help people around the world who were suffering in the midst of war and major disasters. In particular, the organization has offices in 28 countries and employees more than 30,000 people. Over a hundred million patients have been treated. Doctors without Borders was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. The US Office of Doctors Without Borders is located in New York City.
I first became aware of Doctors without Borders through my colleague and friend in Barcelona, Narcís Vives. Eventually, we were participating together in online projects since the early 90s. In 1993, Narcís was working with a group of people in Catalonia to start a telecommunications humanitarian project to help support a refugee camp Veli Joze, Croatia.. Narcis invited the Global Thinking Project schools in Australia, Czech Republic, Russia, and the United States to become involved with the Catalonia project. The GTP did, and you can read about how in this post on this blog.
Trouble Spots
We experimented to ways of using the online environment to bring students and teachers together for nearly 20 years. Our goal was to use the Internet as a channel of communication, not for the simple concept of the “delivery of instruction.” In this humanitarian example, which coincided with Doctors Without Borders philosophy, we showed that people can be brought together online in the service of others. In short, the DWB not only does this, but is on the ground in trouble spots around the globe.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created trouble spots in every continent of the world. To begin with, the pandemic is still spreading. Countries are working the a variety of mitigation methods to stop the spread. However, the situation in many places has pushed hospitals and medical works to the brink, not of exhaustion, but fear that they don’t have the supplies and support to help patients.
That said, there is still hope for people. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is work going on in laboratories and universities to search for treatments and vaccines. Who has a running list of candidate vaccines, which you can peruse here. It was also reported by the BBC, that the first patients were injected in the UK vaccine trial. There is much to look forward to here, but we must realize that it will take time for the vaccines to not only go through trials, but approvals as well. It could be a year or more.
In the meantime, I believe that knowledge is power.
The list below is from the Doctors Without Borders website, a trusted source of medical information. The links will take you to their site.
The Coronavirus Emergency
Doctors without Borders has established a website that explains what we know about the COVID-19 pandemic, and how DWB teams are responding.
- What is a coronavirus?
- What is COVID-19?
- How is coronavirus transmitted?
- How dangerous is coronavirus?
- How can I prevent myself from being infected?
- How is Doctors Without Borders responding to COVID-19?
- How can I help?
In Sum
We are in the midst of a great struggle. But it is in times like this that we can react by reaching out to others for support, as well helping others in this time of strife. The resources that I’ve identified here hopefully will help you and your family.
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