Third edition of MSF Scientific Day South Asia held

The primary focus of the conference this year was climate change

The international medical humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hosted the third edition MSF Scientific Days South Asia today in New Delhi. The primary focus of the conference this year was climate change – an issue that is rarely seen as the public health challenge it is.

“Our ability to respond to public health challenges depends on our understanding of the issues we are faced with. Climate change and environmental factors are already having an effect on people’s health, and it will only increase in the near future. What does this mean for the humanitarian sector, and for a medical organisation such as MSF? By focusing on climate change, we wanted to begin answering this important question,” said Peter Paul de Groote, General Director, MSF India.

Brahma Chellaney, Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, delivered the keynote address. The keynote was followed by a panel discussion comprising Jyotsna Puri, Head of the Independent Evaluation Office of the Green Climate Fund and Adil Najam, the inaugural Dean of the Frederick S Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. “We talk about gun death as if it’s a national calamity and death from dirty water as if it’s a developmental statistic”, Najam said.

The ‘conference without borders’ also brought together research on important public health issues confronting South Asia. The research presented included a case study of antimicrobial resistance from Pakistan, a comparison of different TB treatment regimens in Uzbekistan, and research on HIV-hepatitis C co-infection in Myanmar. MSF’s TB programmes in Mumbai and Manipur were also the subject of presentations.

The Scientific Day conference in South Asia is part of a series of conferences organised by MSF every year to present research from the frontline of humanitarian action. “MSF’s medical and humanitarian research aims to improve patient care, particularly for vulnerable and excluded communities. We hope MSF Scientific Days South Asia 2017 helps crystallise the policies and solutions needed to tackle the most pressing public health concerns of today,” de Groote added.