Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, May 15, 2008

OA to MSF field research

MSF makes its research accessible to health workers in developing countries, press release, May 15, 2008.
Today, the international medical humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has launched a website which makes available, for free, published research based on its medical work. ...

"We were concerned that health professionals in developing countries would not be able to pay for access to our medical research and would miss information that could be highly relevant to their work," says Tony Reid, Medical Editor at the MSF office in Brussels. "The vast majority of our medical activities, and by extension our research initiatives, take place in poorer countries. We therefore applaud the willingness of medical publishers to allow us to archive the articles free of charge for the global medical community.

MSF is archiving all its peer-reviewed research and commentary articles on the site. At its launch, there are over 350 articles on HIV care, malaria, tuberculosis, leishmaniasis and other diseases, as well as more general topics such as medical care in emergencies, refugee health and health politics. As new articles are published, they will be archived on the site. ...
See also the comments by Public Library of Science and BioMed Central (whose Open Repository service, based on DSpace, runs the MSF site).