A Potential Time Bomb of High Infection Rates and Drug Resistant Strains of Malaria
On April 25, the annual World Malaria Day, many health organizations will highlight important gains in fighting this deadly disease that claims more than one million lives every year. But despite notable progress in innovation and investment, MSF continues to see continuously high rates of malaria in several African countries. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), MSF has observed infection rates above emergency thresholds in several zones over the last six months, which can be largely attributed to a dysfunctional surveillance system, the failure of the health system to respond to elevated levels of malaria, poor organization, and lack of diagnostic testing and drugs.
DRC 2011 © Robin Meldrum
A mother and child in the pediatric ward of Niangara hospital.
What is a name?
Tree amber
Woven, gently embracing the strands of
Her hair
Her voice spoken
Without having to open her mouth
Her voice telling her story
A prologue to the chapters
To be read in the depths: the weatherworn
Pages of her eyes.
A title
A role placed into the hands
Of society’s captive
That burns violently
Until shaken off, or gripped
Tightly, swung like a sword
To tear into the fear that
Em-burdened its new master.
A mission
A concise description
Inviting its wearer to dream
Alive
And shine its rays over the peaks
Refracting through all in its path
Formerly called opacities.
Drain
Drain me of your confidence
Drain me of your consciousness
Drain me of my word and my history
Drain me of my palatability
-
But of my renown I hold on to none
Much like a grip on down
In a gust
Gone
-
But not before it’s a feather
Or a pen
Or a drug-laced syringe
Its philosophy and being
Distorted
Into the image stamped upon it
By registers of light
-
This distorted image
Magnified
Reversed
Altogether unfaithful to the original
Down
The survival element upon a young
Bird’s breast
A collection of hope and good will
Effort
A structural representation of struggle
And the fleeting nature by which all
Can be for naught;
Or for sweet survival
Returning a gift to the world that bore it.
Very much a structural representation—
The fragility of our grip on reality.
Down goes the down
Into the drain
Of lost consciousness.
Arch
Domination
Excavation
Of the sweet seeds of determination
Split and spit without a chance
For germination.
-
Manipulation
The threatening horrification
Of a beautiful notion
Called equality.
-
It’s hard to see clearly when
Huffing the scent of sick success
Fumes rising from the fallen
Mulched by the heels
Of who they’ve carried.
-
Why should one be higher than another?
One heart more worthy of hearing
More worthy of being seen
Through the cataracts of the public view?
-
And yet they follow
Like turkeys toward a slaughterhouse
Convinced that what lies at the end of that dark
Little entrance
Is something pleasant and glorious.
-
Consider that there is a reason
How the exalted got so high
And it was not by the supernatural.
-
Look beneath his feet
To find the corpses.
Hands of the understanding
When I scream
Though more like a rusty bark
Can you hear me?
When you cry
Though more like dew from a leaf
Can I catch your tear?
When the winter winds come crashing down upon
Your frozen shoulders torn
Do your fingers start to bleed?
Alone in an unknown locus you may sit
Clinging to the final threads
Of comprehending agony
But in just a moment to come
The gentlest words to ever grace your ear:
We understand.
The stars will once again be
Visible in the sky
And you will find your way to where you want to go
Wait just one more hour
For the gentle touch of
The hands of the understanding
Even if you must depart
They so dearly want to feel the gusts
Of your words
So please a moment
Spared for the hands of the understanding
Let us take a view of the moon tonight
A glance at the giant glowing orb
That has bid us a dream so sweet
Before every slip from overdrive
Plunge your agony into mine
And set sail to your words into the windows nearby
Leave nothing forgotten to regret not mentioning
And pour your pain into my arms
My hands
My hands of the understanding
I have been where you stand now
And here in this locus, I reside
Ask me to take you home, I will.
Ask me to make this home, I bid you my welcome.
For you, dear friend, will never be alone again.
Yes, we do hold women to double-standards, and we really must stop.
(Source: tomorrow-a-penthouse)
Nightwind
Elevation:
She slowly opens the weary
Lips of her eyes
To observe the lay around her
Placing gently the touch of her gaze
Plain by plain
She moves gracefully, grazing the ground
With the light, yet firm pitterpatter
Of her feet
And with her head held high
She blows a kiss to the stars
To be felt upon the comfort of the night
Her touch on one’s cheek so
Reassuring and healing
In its reunion of lost traveller
To the earth: his home.
“During hearings Friday, the Dene were repeatedly asked to refrain from testifying about cumulative environmental effects from area industrialization.”
Silence is never golden.
Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.
Photo: An MSF physiotherapist works in one of Misrata’s detention centers, where MSF is suspending operations. Libya 2011 © MSF
MSF teams began working in Misrata’s detention centers in August, 2011, to treat war-wounded detainees. Since then, MSF doctors had been increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by torture during interrogation sessions. The interrogations were held outside the detention centers. In total, MSF treated 115 people who had torture-related wounds.
The organization reported all the cases to the relevant authorities in Misrata. Since January, several of the patients returned to interrogation centers were again tortured. MSF medical teams were also asked to treat patients inside the interrogation centers, which the organization categorically refused.
The most alarming case occurred on January 3, when MSF doctors treated a group of 14 detainees who returned to a detention facility from an interrogation center. Despite previous MSF demands for the immediate end of torture, 9 of the 14 detainees had suffered numerous injuries and displayed obvious signs of torture.
The MSF team informed the National Army Security Service—the agency responsible for interrogations—that a number of patients needed to be transferred to hospitals for urgent and specialized care. All but one of the detainees were again deprived of essential medical care and were subjected to renewed interrogations and torture outside the detention centers.
