5-5 | Manila, Philippines is set to host the 18th round of the multilateral trade deal - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that encompasses 50% of the global population. With the Philippines holding the chairmanship of ASEAN for 2017, it can be an opportune time for Philippines to take the lead in ensuring that market gains will not trump the right of millions of people to access affordable medicines.
12-5 | As negotiators from the 16 countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) meet in Tangerang, Indonesia, starting today, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), along with other health groups, reiterated concerns about harmful intellectual property provisions in the proposed agreement that would increase market monopolies for pharmaceutical corporations and delay or block access to affordable generic medicines. With ratification and implementation of the highly controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement increasingly in doubt,
5-18 | Health professionals working in the hardest-hit areas of Ecuador have felt the impact of the recent earthquake particularly deeply; they not only have to deal with the emotional impact on their patients, but the consequences for themselves and for their families. Like so many people in Ecuador, health professionals lost their homes, their projects and even their loved ones in the earthquake.
4-21 | Concha Fernández is the project coordinator for two of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams currently responding to medical needs in Ecuador following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake which struck the northeast of the country on Saturday, April 16. According to the latest official figures, 525 people were killed in the earthquake. When did you arrive in Ecuador and what did you find? MSF has a project in Tumaco, Colombia, which is very close to the Ecuadorian border.
4-21 | The earthquakes that ratted southwestern Japan last week injured around 1,100 people in Kumamoto and Oita prefectures and led to the deaths of another 58. Roughly 103,000 people remained displaced in Kumamoto and around 600 in Oita, and the authorities are still searching for people who are unaccounted for as well.