Nigeria: Prevention is key to stop children from dying of lead poisoning

More than 11 years after environmental contamination began causing the death of hundreds of children in Zamfara, northern Nigeria, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has handed over its lead poisoning project to state authorities, as children are no longer dying of lead poisoning in the area. In March 2010, our teams received an alert about a … Read more

Jordan: MSF ends intervention for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has ended one of its largest interventions responding to the health and humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan. Our response to the Syrian refugee crises in Jordan started in 2013, through an emergency surgical hospital in Ramtha to treat war-wounded patients crossing the borders from southern Syria. In 2014, a 40-bed post-operative care … Read more

Yemen: Thousands desperate for food, water and shelter in conflict-hit Marib

“We don’t have blankets to cover ourselves,” says Aafia, one of the thousands of internally displaced people sheltering in Marib governorate, Yemen. “My children have no warm clothes and I don’t have enough food to feed them.” The scene in Marib is a gloomy snapshot of how millions of Yemenis are suffering as a result of the … Read more

New Year babies: The first MSF newborns of 2022

There is always a reason to find hope. For a second uncertain year in a row, many countries have faced the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, while, at the same time, conflict, disaster and obstacles to accessing care have hit people hard around the world. But, in the middle of countless humanitarian crises, hopeful mothers … Read more

Philippines: MSF launches response after Typhoon Rai leaves hundreds of casualties in its wake

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) emergency teams will start providing medical and humanitarian assistance to communities on the remote islands of Dinagat, Siargao and other outlying areas, some of the worst affected by Typhoon Rai (local name: Odette), which struck the Philippines in December 2021 causing hundreds of casualties. Following assessments carried out between … Read more

MSF responds to latest WHO recommendation for a COVID-19 therapeutic, baricitinib

Geneva: With the World Health Organization (WHO) recommending baricitinib for the treatment of people with severe or critical COVID-19, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls on governments to take immediate steps to ensure that patent monopolies do not stand in the way of access to this treatment. In hospitalised patients, the oral drug baricitinib can … Read more

Ethiopia: Six months on, still no responsibility established for the killing of María, Tedros and Yohannes in Tigray

Six months after the murder of our three colleagues María, Tedros and Yohannes, the full circumstances of, and responsibility for, their killing remains unclear. On 24 June 2021, 35-year-old María Hernandez, our emergency coordinator; 32-year-old Yohannes Halefom Reda, our assistant coordinator; and 31-year-old Tedros Gebremariam, our driver, were travelling in the Tigray region, northern Ethiopia, when we lost contact … Read more

Inside Afghanistan’s child malnutrition crisis

Dr Mohammed* works for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at Boost Hospital in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, where 400 severely malnourished children under five years of age are treated every month. Many of them are also suffering from worrying complications such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, or gastrointestinal problems. In the intensive therapeutic feeding centre, MSF teams focus on treating … Read more

MSF leaves Polish border after being blocked from assisting people

AMSTERDAM – Three months after sending an emergency response team to assist migrants and refugees crossing from Belarus to Poland, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has withdrawn teams after being repeatedly blocked by Polish authorities from accessing the forested border region, where groups of people are surviving in sub-zero temperatures, in desperate need of medical and humanitarian … Read more

Myanmar: Responding to COVID-19 during political crisis

Political turmoil and the arrival of COVID-19 has left Myanmar’s healthcare system shattered. With 2021 coming to an end, our team on the ground look back at our COVID-19 response, reflecting on what we can be proud of and what we could have done better; the dilemmas, limits and the sometimes-uncomfortable solutions. Myanmar’s public healthcare … Read more