Burnet in Myanmar

Our work in Myanmar before the Cyclone Nargis

For more than a decade before Cyclone Nargis devastated many parts of Burma or Myanmar as it is now known, the Burnet Institute has worked in this beautiful country helping to improve the health of local communities.

Brief Description

Staffed with 26 Burmese nationals and two expats, our office in Burma’s capital, Yangon, currently manages two major projects, both of which aim to build the capacity of local organisations to respond to infectious diseases across nine provinces and divisions in Burma.  But recently that work stopped when devastating Cyclone Nargis reached Burma.

While Burnet is not a relief agency, we have considerable expertise and experience in emergency responses particularly through our capacity to provide technical support and training to local Burmese community agencies, as well as to other international NGOs that operate throughout Myanmar. 

We know that the best way Burnet can support the relief effort in Burma is to provide technical and epidemiological guidance and organisational support to local partners and international NGOs. And that’s just what we’ve been doing. Apart from providing care and support for people living with HIV and their families, and psychosocial support for frontline staff responding to the crisis, one of our most important considerations, and oftentimes the most forgotten, is to provide emergency sexual and reproductive health to women – one of Burnet’s areas of expertise.

So in this time of crisis for so many, this is the type of work the Burnet Institute has been providing.  However, once the immediate and urgent response to Cyclone Nargis is under control we will once again focus on our usual day to day business of assisting our local partner organisations to reach Myanmar’s vulnerable populations and  ‘work towards a healthy world’.  If you’d like to know more about our regular health program in Myanmar, click here.

On a personal note…

In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, all of the staff from our Burma office have been accounted for and are well, although many have suffered significant damage to their homes. We are saddened to advise that one staff member has lost seven of her immediate family members as a result of the flooding in the Irrawaddy Delta region that accompanied the cyclone. While for privacy reasons Burnet cannot reveal her name, we are doing everything we can to assist this staff member, her family and in fact all of our staff at this very, very difficult and anxious time.