Access To Medicines

Every minute, somewhere in the world a woman or girl has an unsafe abortion. MSF is committed to providing safe abortion care to reduce avoidable suffering and deaths.

Unsafe abortion is one of the main causes of maternal death worldwide, and the only one that is almost entirely preventable.

Every day, our teams around the world witness first-hand the death and suffering caused by unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion.

That’s how we know that safe abortion care is essential healthcare.

MSF's Impact

In response to the need for better treatments, vaccines and diagnostic tests MSF set up its Access Campaign in 1999 to improve care for patients.

The aims of MSF Access Campaign are to:

  • Push for price cuts to medicines, vaccines and diagnostic tests by stimulating the production of more affordable generic products     
  • Act as a watchdog to ensure that the corporate interests don’t win out over public health needs     
  • Steer the direction of medical research toward urgently needed new drugs, vaccines and tests that don’t exist yet or are not tailored to the needs of people in developing countries     
  • Scope out, support and monitor new models to fund medical research that respond to medical rather than corporate needs and do not rely on charging sky high prices for the final product to pay for the research     

In 2003, MSF joined forces with six other organisations from around the world to establish the Drugs For Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), with the aim of developing new drugs or new formulations of existing drugs for patients suffering from the most neglected communicable diseases.

DNDi seeks to address unmet needs by taking on projects that others are unable or unwilling to pursue.
 

MSF is well known for its humanitarian medical work, but it has also produced important research based on its field experience with vulnerable communities .

This website archives MSF's scientific articles and makes them available free, with full text and in an easily searchable format. MSF Field Research website.

MSF is also pushing for increased research into neglected diseases – such as tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis – through increased funding, investing in research and development (R&D) capability in developing countries and supporting alternative models for R&D

Some treatments are no longer produced. MSF is calling on companies and governments to find solutions to bring unprofitable but medically necessary drugs back into production.

MSF is also supporting developing countries in codifying into law the "safeguards" that are allowed under international trade rules in order to protect access to medicines.

 
MSF, Doctors Without Borders, South Africa, Rustenburg
International Migrants Day

Access to healthcare remains a challenge for migrant mothers and children in Gauteng hospitals

Press Release 14 Dec 2022
 
MSF Aids Projects in South Africa - November 2003
HIV/AIDS

Pharmaceutical corporation ViiV must make ground-breaking HIV prevention injection affordable and available

Press Release 29 Nov 2022
 
MSF, Doctors Without Borders, A year in Pictures 2021
Access to Healthcare

The triple threat of climate change, conflict, and health emergencies: A deadly mix for the most vulnerable in fragile settings

Press Release 4 Nov 2022
 
TRIPS_Waiver_Fix_the_patent_laws_MSF288553
Access To Medicines

TRIPS non-waiver outcome highlights urgent need for domestic IP reform in South Africa

Op-Ed 6 Sep 2022
 
Stockouts: access to contraceptives in South African public health clinics
South Africa

Contraceptives are most common medicine stockout at public health facilities in 2022, Stop Stockouts Project research finds

Press Release 29 Aug 2022
 
MSF, Doctors Without Borders, South Africa, xenophobic attacks blocking healthcare in Pretoria
South Africa

Intensifying xenophobic climate and politicisation of healthcare blocks patients from hospitals in Pretoria

Press Release 26 Aug 2022