AI - Médecins du Monde

The international network of Médecins du Monde- Fighting AIDS
Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) grasped the devastating potential of the HIV epidemic and
the marginalisation it entails for people living with AIDS, early on. Twenty years after the debut of the
epidemic, the disease is still taking a heavy toll among those who benefit from our programs.
MdM’s early involvement in the fight against HIV/AIDS has always been focused on advocacy and
innovation. In 1987, MdM France opens in Paris the first free anonymous voluntary counselling and
testing centre. As of 1989, MdM becomes a key player in France in the area of harm reduction,
particularly reducing the risk of HIV and viral hepatitis linked to the intravenous injection of drugs,
through needle exchange programmes and methadone substitution programmes adapted to the most
marginalized drug addicts. In 1992, innovative pilot programmes start in Africa, such as prevention
programs in rural areas in Uganda and then in Tanzania, proving that it is possible to provide care to
AIDS patients in extremely precarious conditions.
Today, the international network of MDM advocates for an integrated approach to the disease, taking
into account the social, political and economic factors which reinforce the vulnerability and exclusion
associated with AIDS. Present during crises and conflict, MdM intervenes where the disease strikes the
most excluded: sex workers, drug users or women victims of violence. MdM’s network cares for and
supports people living with HIV in places where access to care is virtually non-existent: rural areas of
the Democratic Republic of Congo, migrant crossroads in Kenya and Mozambique, shanty towns in
Haiti, drug injecting houses in Myanmar or amongst sex workers in Burkina Faso and ethnic minorities
in West Papua.
Prevention, screening and access to antiretroviral treatments are at the heart of MdM’s action and are
carried out in close cooperation with the national actors engaged in the fight against AIDS. Our outreach
work enables us to develop prevention messages appropriate for their recipients and the complex
course of their lives. The work carried by community educators, is an example of this, as well as the
anthropological approach integrated into some programs.
MdM supports activist efforts by community associations working to fights against AIDS, in order to
ensure a stronger and sustainable response to the epidemic. Strengthening local capacities is also done
by training our local partners, especially health staff.
The fight against AIDS also implies the defence of human rights. By denouncing the stigmatization and
the exclusion of those living with AIDS, MDM takes an active part in the fight against the pandemic.