Lipi Upadhyay 
Thousands of Ukrainians are arriving at the Palanca border crossing in Moldova every day to escape the fighting in the south of Ukraine. Since the war began, more than 230,000 refugees (as of March 8) have arrived in Moldova. However, less than half of them have stayed – heading west to other countries in Europe. Those arriving in Palanca … Read more
Anja Wolz, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Emergency Coordinator currently based in Lviv, Ukraine, explains the urgency of this stage of the humanitarian response to the war in the country. Here in Lviv, I am getting multiple calls from hospitals with urgent appeals for assistance. We are embarking on an urgent race against time to … Read more
Zainab didn’t sleep well last night. The lights and the incessant beeping of the machines in the intensive care unit would keep anyone awake. But mainly she couldn’t sleep because she was worried about her one-year-old son, Takberullah. He also had a restless, irritable night as he was having trouble breathing until the doctor gave … Read more
Carla Melki, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has just returned from the port city of Odessa in southern Ukraine, where she was part of an MSF team assessing the current situation. Our teams there have been planning activities in response to the war in the country. From Moldova, a neighbouring country to which refugees … Read more
Around 6 pm local time, Saturday 5 March, one of Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) emergency response teams in Ukraine met Oleksandr Kamyshin, Chairman of the Board of Ukrainian Railways. MSF’s first international supplies had arrived in Ukraine, and had been unloaded in the warehouse, just a few hours before. “The hospitals in Kyiv are desperate … Read more
The city of Mariupol is among the areas now heavily affected by the war in Ukraine. Multiple staff members of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are sheltering in the city with their families. One staff member gave the following account today: “The situation is the same as in recent days. Last night the shelling was harder and … Read more
Following the soul-wrenching reports we received from trapped Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff in Mariupol, Ukraine, we are closely following the ongoing reports about an agreement for the safe passage of civilians this weekend. It is vital that such opportunities for civilians to escape from areas of violent warfare are not one-off and time-limited offers. At MSF, … Read more
While the number of deaths and injuries rises in Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of people seek refuge in neighbouring countries, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is working to get staff and equipment into areas most affected by the Russian military offensive. Bérengère Guais, deputy head of emergency programmes in Paris, explains the challenges and … Read more
In recent years, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been able to improve patients’ experiences of care for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), but the changing political situation threatens to derail this progress, writes Anita Mesic, MSF tuberculosis (TB), HIV, and hepatitis adviser. This article was originally published in The BMJ. On my last visit to MSF’s TB hospital in … Read more
CAPE TOWN: A vaccination support programme developed by MSF in Khayelitsha, South Africa, in partnership with the Western Cape Department of Health (WCDoH), has shown that it is possible to target and protect individuals with comorbidities that increase the risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19. Most facilities in South Africa do not offer targeted … Read more