The Article in Brief
Caring for Rohingya Refugees With Diphtheria and Measles: On the Ethics of Humanity
Ramin Asgary
Background In 2017, Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar arrived in Bangladesh, where Ramin Asgary, MD, an MSF medical advisor and professor of global health, was helping to establish medical services. The refugee camps were ravaged by a dual outbreak of measles and diphtheria--two diseases that, under less complex circumstances, were easily preventable with inexpensive vaccines.
What This Study Found A Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres field doctor reveals the personal toll it takes to establish medical services during a humanitarian health crisis. In his essay, Asgary invites readers to join him on his medical rounds as he treats patients in makeshift medical tents. Intimately, he reveals the thought process of a humanitarian physician responding to an environment of perpetual desperation.