Medical expertise
The Manson Unit, MSF UK's Medical Unit, was named after the father of modern tropical medicine Sir Patrick Manson. Established in 2003, it consists of a pool of experts including medical doctors, laboratory technicians, epidemiologists and a medical editor.
MSF teams respond to cholera outbreaks in Angola, 2006
Photo by Barry Gutwein
The unit’s role is to monitor and evaluate the quality of MSF’s medical programmes. Usually, this means identifying developments in the management of various diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS and malnutrition, and helping MSF field projects put these changes into practice.
The unit also monitors the implementation of these changes and helps the organisation improve its practice by documenting and sharing lessons learned from the experience. For example, from 2003–5, the unit helped field projects change from treating malaria patients with older medications, such as chloroquine, to the new artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), which has proved to be a more effective treatment.
Current projects
The unit’s current projects include
- evaluating and improving malaria control in Sierra Leone,
- supporting the initiation of programmes to treat drug-resistant TB,
- and supporting the implementation of a new data surveillance system.
The unit is UK-based to take advantage of the diversity of expertise in international health, humanitarian organisations and academic research. Various institutions, such as the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, collaborate with MSF on issues that project staff deal with day to day.
The UK is also home to many important political, medical and media players who are influential in shaping international health policy. Being centrally located allows MSF, through the UK Medical Unit, to advocate for the best patient care available.