Portal de Murcia

www.portaldemurcia.com

Voices Against Forgetting "photo exhibition on neglected diseases (11/06/2008)

From the experiences of patients and physicians in the field, Doctors Without Borders has identified 6 neglected diseases that cause suffering for millions of people, almost completely ignored by the pharmaceutical industry and the national and international political leadership.

Doctors Without Borders has chosen to customize the information and data through real stories, stories of people affected by these diseases that have been captured in photographic images and documentaries.

The project co-produced by Doctors Without Borders and Beyond Point Festival, is necessary because although medical advances and improved living conditions have led to greater life expectancy in rich countries, there are no medicines to treat some diseases threaten the survival of people who need them mostly in poor countries, and because there is insufficient research to pharmaceutical companies for these diseases.

Sleeping sickness

Over 60 million people in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa live under the threat of this disease and less than four million of them have access to a health post.

It is believed that the number of people infected between 300,000 and 500,000.

Chagas disease

American trypanosomiasis, also known as Chagas disease is common in the 17 countries that form Central and South America.

From Mexico to Chile, Chagas disease threatens a quarter of the population of Latin America.

With 18 million infected people, ranks third in the ranking of most common tropical diseases in the world, after malaria and schistosomiasis.

Tuberculosis

Almost extinct, thanks to the discovery of drugs against tuberculosis in the mid-twentieth century, this disease has bounced back strongly as a result of the AIDS epidemic, as well as resistant strains.

Now there is multidrug-resistant TB, which originated in the old former Soviet republics.

Today, kills two million people each year, of which 98% live in poor countries.

Kala Azar (black fever) Visceral Leishmaniasis.

Currently, although 12 million people worldwide have some form of leishmaniasis, só'97lo officially declared 30% of cases.

Under the threat 350 million people living in a total of 88 countries.

Malaria

Currently, malaria is a threat for 40% of the population.

Each year, 500 million people are infected, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and two million people die of this disease, mostly children in rural areas.

AIDS

It is estimated that 39.5 million people living with HIV / AIDS worldwide, of which 61% live in sub-Saharan Africa.

As for children, while in developed countries, transmission from mother to child has dropped below 1% in developing countries achieve transmission rates between 25 and 45%.

This is proof of a terrible gap in strategies to combat AIDS globally.

Symposium + Exhibition Talk Opening

"Voices against forgetting"

Juan Carlos Tomasi

Doctors Without Borders

Speakers:

Juan Carlos Tomasi

Reporter and photographer from MSF Spain

Javier Sancho

Information Officer of Doctors Without Borders Spain

Bru Rovira

Reporter for The Vanguard