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The Kashin-Beck Disease Foundation
Kashin-Beck Disease Foundation (KBDF) is an international, independent non-profit organisation that provides medical humanitarian assistance to more than 50,000 people living in around 100 villages in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Its mission is to provide assistance to Tibetans living in Kashin-Beck disease endemic areas, with the goals of alleviating the pain caused by Kashin-Beck disease; implementing appropriate and sustainable prevention programs; and researching the causes of the disease.
KBDF's programme is directed by Dr. Francoise Mathieu, who has started the KBD programme for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in 1992; ran it for ten years; earned her PhD with a focus on KBD; and continued the programme under the new organization KBDF. Dr. Mathieu and a team of volunteer scientists, medical and agricultural experts from Belgium guide the field staff daily in its work in the villages. The field staff consists of 11 Tibetan health and administrative officers workers, some who have been in the programme since 1992.
To the best of our knowledge, KBDF is the only non-governmental organization that is carrying out clinical activities and undertaking research on KBD for Tibetans affected by Kashin-Beck Disease. KBDF collaborates with the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Tibet Autonomous Region. KBDF has also regular contacts with Chinese researchers who work in other endemics areas such as in Heilonjiang, Sha'anxi, Sichuan, and Gansu provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as well as in Beijing.
KBDF was founded in November 2002 and registered as a non-profit organization in Belgium (N° 479.122.491). KBDF maintains complete independence in its operations, research activities, financial management, fundraising, and staffing from any political groups or governmental departments. |
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Historical context
The international humanitarian organisation Doctors without Borders (MSF) started a programme to fight the Kashin-Beck Disease (KBD) in Tibet, in 1992. The treatment of the disease, also known as Big Bone Disease, initially focused on relieving the pain and the physical handicaps of the patients through physical therapy. From 1995 onwards MSF started to research the risk factors linked to the disease. A prevention strategy was implemented in 22 villages. Eventually seventy other villages could benefit from the actions developed.
MSF, focusing on emergency humanitarian aid as its core business, decided to withdraw from Tibet in 2002. With time, the KBD project had developed into a long term program which didn’t fit the MSF priorities anymore. In order to be able to continue their work, the Tibetan team and the international experts of the KBD project created the Kashin-Beck Disease Foundation (Kashin-Beck Disease asbl/vzw, established in Belgium)
The KBD Foundation provides medical services to patients suffering from KBD. Its aim is to prevent new cases through a distribution of nutrients supplements and by improving the grain storage techniques. The organization also trains the medical community in order to use curative and preventive techniques and continues the research on the disease in Central Tibet.
The 4 co-founders of the KBD Foundation are academics and doctors who were already participating in the MSF project. The 6 members of the Board of Directors are also professionals interested in the epidemiological research on and treatment of the KBD |
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Kashin-Beck Disease Foundation : Board of Directors |
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Maurice HINSENKAMP, MD, PhD
Board President and Co-founder of the KBD Foundation
Maurice Hinsenkamp is Professor and Chairman of the Faculty Board of Orthopedic Surgery at Brussels University (ULB). He is Head of Clinics of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology, University Hospital « Erasmus », Brussels, Belgium. His clinical subspecialities : hip surgery, external fixation, bone reconstruction. He is also Director of the Orthopedic Research Laboratory and of the Bone and Tissue Bank, Erasmus Hospital, ULB.
His main research fields are related to bone biomechanics and physical factors interacting with bone growth and repair.
Secretary General of the International Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology (SICOT) from 2002 to 2008, he is President Elect up to 2011 and will be President from 2011 to 2014.
Involved in the multidisciplinary study on Kashin-Beck Disease since 1993, he participated to two missions with Doctors Without Borders in Tibet.
Guest Editor of an issue of International Orthopaedics (V. 25 (3), 2001) dedicated to the Kashin Beck Disease and author or co-author of 10 publications on KBD.
Email: mhinsenk@ulb.ac.be Phone: + 32 2 555 36 40. |
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Koen VANDEKERCKHOVE
Board Treasurer, co-founder
Koen Vandekerckhove was born in Zwevezele, Belgium, 1967. He studied business administration (applied economics) at the University of Antwerp (UFSIA), where he obtained his master’s degree in 1989. He got a postgraduate degree in development co-operation at the University of Ghent in 1991. He was a lecturer in accounting at the university of Dalat, Vietnam and Finance Director of two foreign-owned companies in the same city.
After his return to Belgium in 1999, he initially worked as a consultant for Andersen after which he took various positions in finance and management for social-profit organisations working on the integration of ethnic-cultural minorities.
As a co-founder of the KBD Foundation in 2002 he volunteered to become the treasurer, a position which he is still taking up today.
Email: koenvandekerckhove@belgacom.net
Phone: +32 9 223 66 67 |
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François MALAISSE, PhD
Board Secretary
Dr. Malaisse, born in Antwerpen (Belgium) in 1934, is Ingenieur (Forestry & Water) of Gembloux Agricultural University (1956), has a B.Sc. (Botany) from Brussels Free University (U.L.B., 1960) and a Ph. D. in Sciences from Lubumbashi University (1968). He was Head of the Ecology Unit at this last University(1970-86) and at Gembloux University (1987-2000). He devoted much research on ethnobotany and ethno-ecology, starting from local peasant knowledge to management of their environment in order to increase their local welfare. Such approach has been developed in Tropical Africa (Bemba, Nalu, pygmee), South America and Tibet (Ü population, KBD). He has published some eleven books and more than 300 papers. Knowledge of wild edible plants, their nutritional aspect, their domestication are main items surveyed. He is past-Director of the Science and Medicine Class of the Royal Academy Over-Sea Sciences as well as the Botanical Section of the National Council for Science Research of Belgium (F.N.R.S.).
E-mail: malaisse.f@skynet.be Phone: +32 81 601813 |
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Françoise MATHIEU, PhD
Co-founder of the KBD Foundation
Françoise Mathieu, born in Belgium in 1960, is Batchelor in Physical Therapy (1982) and holds a PhD in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation (2001) from Brussels Free University (U.L.B.). The subject of her thesis was “Kashin-Beck Disease (KBD): Clinical Features, X-rays Aspects and Clinical Trial of a Physical Therapy Treatment in Central Tibet.”. She studied also Tropical Medicine (1986), Tropical Medicine Institute Prince Leopold, Antwerp, Belgium Methodology and Practice in Epidemiology (2003) and Medical Statistics (2005), University of Bordeaux - France.
She joined Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in 1986 and worked in several countries and contexts until 2002. The last 10 years (1992 – 2002), Dr. Mathieu managed the KBD projects for MSF.
In 2002, together with 3 colleagues, she created “Kashin-Beck Disease Foundation”.
At present, she is directing the different projects that the Foundation is implementing in Tibet Autonomous Region (P.R. China)
Email: francoise.mathieu@kbdfoundation.org
Phone + fax: + 32 84 468347
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Camille CHASSEUR, PhD
Co-founder of the KBD Foundation
Camille Chasseur obtained a degree in Biological Sciences, with a specialization in Botany and Ecology, from Brussels Free University (ULB). He also holds a PhD in Mycology from Mons University (Belgium).
Dr. Chasseur is presently the Head of the Microbiological Indoor Pollution Unit in the Section of Mycology at the Scientific Institute of Public Health (I.P.H.) in Brussels (Belgium).
In 1995, he has been contacted by MSF Belgium to take part in a study on Kashin Beck Disease in Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Several missions on site were carried out to verify the fungal hypothesis of the disease. In 1998, he contributed to the set up of a mycology laboratory in Lhasa. He is also involved in the different actions linked with the grains decontamination.
In 2002, he co-founded and became a member of KBD Foundation.
E-mail: camillechasseur@yahoo.fr |
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Carl SUETENS, MD
Carl Suetens, born in Duffel (Belgium) in 1963, is a medical epidemiologist (MD, Catholic University of Leuven 1988;Tropical Medecine, Institute of Tropical Medecine Antwerp 1989; Epidemiological and statistical methods, Public Health School ULB 1992) and was the head of the Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance Programme at the Epidemiology Unit of the Scientific Institute of Public Health (I.P.H.) in Brussels. He is currently working at the Surveillance Unit of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm.
As a former member of the medical department of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), he has been working in the field of Kashin-Beck Disease since 1994, mainly on study design and data analysis in different subfields of KBD. His main area of expertise is the quantification of the balance between causal risk factors (mycotoxins on storage grains and humic acids in drinking water) and protective risk factors (food diversity, selenium and iodine deficiency) in the etiology of KBD through multivariate analysis.
Email: carl.suetens@telenet.be
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