What is Médecins Sans Frontières?
Known in the U.S. as Doctors Without Borders, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was founded in 1971 as an independent, international, medical humanitarian organization. It delivers emergency aid in more than 80 countries to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or human disasters, or exclusion from health care.

Each year, nearly 5,000 MSF doctors, nurses, logisticians, water and sanitation experts, administrators, and other medical and nonmedical professionals serve alongside more than 25,000 locally hired staff.

In emergencies and their aftermath, MSF provides essential health care, rehabilitates and runs hospitals and clinics, performs surgery, battles epidemics, carries out vaccination campaigns, operates feeding centers for malnourished children, and offers mental health care. When necessary, MSF also constructs wells, dispenses clean drinking water, and provides shelter materials like blankets and plastic sheeting.

Through its longer-term programs, MSF treats patients with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, sleeping sickness, and HIV/AIDS and provides medical and psychological care to marginalized groups such as street children.

MSF's decision to intervene in any country or crisis is based solely on an independent assessment of people's needs—not on political, economic, or religious interests. MSF does not take sides or intervene in response to demands from governments or warring parties.

MSF unites direct medical care with a commitment to bear witness and speak out against the causes of suffering and the obstacles to providing effective

assistance. Based on its field experience, MSF addresses obstacles that prevent people in the developing world from obtaining affordable, effective treatments for diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

To maintain its operational independence and flexibility, MSF relies on individual donors, foundations, and nonprofit organizations for its funding. MSF-USA's funding comes 100% from private sources; no U.S. government monies are accepted. Worldwide, MSF gets about 85% of its operating funds from private sources. For more information about MSF, click here.

Telling time in Ethiopia
One of the challenges of working in Ethiopia is telling time. This was not really a problem when we were in Galaha, as we agreed to work according to European time. But whenever meetings were scheduled back in Addis Ababa, one always needed to clarify if the hour in question was Ethiopian time or European time.

Ethiopians measure time in two 12-hour cycles, the first beginning at 6:00 a.m. and the second at 6:00 p.m. So basically, their 7:00 is always our 1:00—and vice versa. Easy, right? To complicate things further, Ethiopians are only concerned about five-minute increments and always round up. So four minutes after 1:00 is reported as 1:05; but six or seven minutes after 1:00 is reported as 1:10. That's good to know if you have to catch a bus!

Ethiopians celebrate the millennium
It can also be challenging knowing the date in Ethiopia. In 1582, Pope Gregory revised the calendar, and the entire Christian world accepted the new Gregorian calendar. That system is still followed today in almost every country—with the exception of Ethiopia,

which continues to follow the Julian calendar.

Thus Ethiopians use a calendar with 12 months of 30 days each, followed by a 13th month with only five days (six days in a leap year). And Ethiopia is always seven years and eight months "behind" the rest of the world. For example, New Year's Day always falls on September 11, and our September 11, 2007, marked the beginning of their 2000. So Ethiopians got to experience millennium mania twice!

The scourge of TB
Tuberculosis (TB) was a worldwide scourge until the 1950s. In the early to middle decades of the 20th century, efforts to control TB in the United States were successful, largely due to improved living conditions and public health measures. But multiple antibiotic medications—taken daily over several months—are required to treat TB. Now, increasingly, failed and incomplete treatment programs in many areas of the world are contributing to the development of multiple-drug-resistant (MDR) and extensively-drug-resistant (XDR) strains of TB—making the disease a major, global public-health threat.

No new medicines designed specifically to treat TB have been developed in over 40 years, and the vaccine used today was developed in 1923. Furthermore, the vaccine's efficacy is poor. Drugs with potential to treat TB do exist, but pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to invest in and test them against TB because there is no market for a lucrative return on their investment because TB is most prevalent in developing countries. It is estimated that only 5% of the world's 16 million TB patients can afford to pay for treatment, though MSF is campaigning internationally for greater access to essential medicines, including TB drugs. For more information on that effort, click here.