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MSF campaigns to challenge the high cost of existing medicines and the absence of treatment for many of the diseases affecting our patients.
Today, one third of the world's population lacks access to essential medicines. In the poorest parts of Africa and Asia this figure rises to half of the population. Too often, MSF cannot treat patients because the medicines are too expensive or they are no longer produced. Sometimes, the only drugs we have are highly toxic or ineffective...
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"I am still trying to work with passion, but the conditions are demoralising. The workload increases by the day. On top of that, since 2003, there are two vacant posts for professional nurses in this clinic. If it was not because I am motivated, nearly a militant supporting the ARV roll out, I would have left long ago."
– Mpumelelo Mantangana, 48, Professional Nurse, Ubuntu TB/HIV Clinic, Khayelitsha, South Africa
In May 2007, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins...
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When children suffer from acute malnutrition, their immune systems are so impaired that the risk of death is greatly increased. Common diseases like a respiratory infection or gastroenteritis can very quickly lead to complications and possibly death. MSF has released the Starved For Attention report calling for food aid to change and for a nutrient rich diet to be made available to children.
South Asia, the Sahel and the Horn of Africa are the most alarming hotspots for child malnutrition and...
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Mental health is a significant medical issue, especially in places where people suffer violence or are living through emergencies and extreme danger.
In 1998, MSF formally recognised the need to implement mental health and psychosocial interventions as part of our emergency work. Mental health care is also part of services for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, nutrition, sexual violence and during Ebola outbreaks.
Treating severely disturbed people remains a challenge for MSF teams, given the...
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Neglected diseases mainly affect people in developing countries. They are the diseases which do not represent a commercially viable market for pharmaceutical companies, because those affected do not have the purchasing power to afford treatment. Companies therefore shirk away from investing into risky and expensive research and drug development for these conditions.
The most neglected diseases are the obscure afflictions which many of us have barely heard of...
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Armed conflicts and other tense situations often cause large population movements, as individuals flee persecution or violence. A refugee is a civilian who no longer is receiving protection from his or her own government, and crosses a national border to escape the conflict or persecution.
Refugees are protected by international law. According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of...
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When conflicts erupt, MSF immediately sends teams of doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists, specialised nurses and logisticians to the field with the necessary equipment to establish operating rooms and clinics, provide essential health care and train local medical and support staff. Nutrition services and epidemic control programmes are often an essential part of MSF’s life-saving services provided to people trapped in conflict or displaced by the fighting.
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In natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, a speedy response is vital. Over the years MSF has developed medical and technical kits that allow emergency teams to set up hospitals and clinics and supply access to safe water within a matter of days or even hours.
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MSF believes that everyone has the right to basic medical care. In countries with collapsed or chronically disrupted health care systems, MSF works with the local authorities to rehabilitate hospital and clinic services. MSF also works with marginalized groups in countries with advanced economies such as street children, prisoners and illegal migrants who do not get adequate medical support.
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The security situation is preventing the Abobo hospital from replenishing its medical supplies and the wounded from leaving their homes to seek medical treatment. Delphine Chedorge, MSF Coordinator in Abobo Sud Hospital in Abidjan, says they are asking the authorities to open up the roads and to protect civilians, so that patients and supplies can reach our hospital. The situation is very critical. View external media here.
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There are more than 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2007, 2.5 million children under 15 years old were living with HIV/AIDS, with 1,150 becoming infected every day. Without treatment, half of all infants with HIV will die before their second birthday.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is transmitted between humans through the exchange of bodily fluids such...
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TB is one of the most deadly infectious diseases in the world. Each year it kills 1.6 million people, with another nine million suffering from the disease, mainly in developing countries. TB is the major killer of people living with HIV in Africa. Almost half a million people develop multi drug-resistant strains of the disease every year.
TB is highly infectious and spreads mainly through the air. Coughing, sneezing, talking and spitting by an infected person can spread the bacteria...
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MSF encountered cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. The TB mycobacterium had mutated into a form that was resistant to some of the drugs used in standard TB treatment. More and more people are contracting drug-resistant forms of TB either as a result of treatment failure or by coming directly into contact with the resistant form of the TB bacteria.
A significant number of others go undiagnosed because the diagnostic tests that exist...
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In 2006, MSF provided treatment for more than 1.8 million people with malaria in 40 countries, including Chad, Myanmar and Sierra Leone.
In 2006, MSF treated more than two million people for malaria. Every year, malaria kills nearly two million people and infects between 400–500 million. Ninety percent of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaria mainly strikes poor and rural communities. Patients are often bedridden for days and can't carry out normal...
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Cholera causes profuse diarrhoea and vomiting, and infected people can die of profound dehydration, sometimes within a matter of hours. It often breaks out when there is overcrowding and inadequate access to clean water, rubbish collection, and proper latrines. This situation can be especially problematic in rainy seasons when houses and latrines flood and contaminated water collects in stagnant pools.
Cholera is caused by infection with bacteria, which is excreted in faeces and...
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Every year half a million children affected by measles die, mostly in Africa and Asia. Even though a safe and effective vaccine exists, outbreaks occur all round the world because routine immunisation programmes are not in place or are not effective.
Measles is caused by the measles virus and is highly contagious. Infection occurs by coming into contact with fluids released when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Early symptoms include a runny nose, cough, eye infection, followed by...
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Meningococcal meningitis is a contagious and potentially fatal bacterial infection of the brain membrane. The bacteria are transmitted through respiratory droplets or throat secretions, with spread commonly occurring through close contact. Overcrowding and cramped living conditions facilitate the spread of the disease.
The vast majority of meningitis cases and deaths occur in Africa. During the dry season (December to June), epidemics regularly hit countries in the African...
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Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease endemic in 88 countries and affecting over 12 million people. It principally affects poor, remote communities where there is limited access to healthcare and affordable drugs. Leishmaniasis often occurs as an epidemic, especially when previously unexposed populations are forced by war and famine to move into endemic areas. The parasite is transmitted to humans by biting sand flies.
In the most severe form of the disease, the visceral...
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Sleeping sickness, or human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), is a fatal parasitic disease that affects 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa: 60 million people are at risk. Nearly eliminated in the 1960s, HAT has been making a comeback of epidemic proportions due to war, population movements and the collapse of health systems over the past two decades.
Sleeping sickness is caused by two sub-species of Trypanosoma parasites, which are transmitted to humans by tsetse flies....
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Chagas is a parasitic disease found on the American continent, where it affects 13 million people and kills up to 50,000 every year. The disease is transmitted by an insect that lives in the walls and roofs of mud and straw houses, common among rural areas and poor urban slums in South America.
Millions of people, including those infected decades ago, go undetected and untreated. This is because symptoms can lie dormant for years and determining whether a patient is infected or...
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