Staff in the 750-bed Okhmatdyt paediatric hospital, one of the largest in central Kyiv, Ukraine, have received training and advice on mass casualty influxes (a large number of trauma patients arriving at the same time) from a visiting surgical team from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The training held on Sunday 13 and Monday 14 March, included … Read more
The number of people attending MSF’s services in Cox’s Bazar with scabies is the highest we have seen in three years. Cases of skin diseases in 2021 were more than double those of 2019, with 73,000 people treated, and infections are continuing to climb in 2022. Almost 90 per cent of all skin diseases treated … Read more
More than 195,000 refugees have crossed into Slovakia since the war started in Ukraine on 24 February, according to the UN*. Our project coordinator, Marta Wnorowska, is currently on the Slovakian-Ukrainian border and describes the situation on the ground. How is the situation in the border Ukrainian town of Uzhhorod? Uzhhorod is a city two kilometres away from Slovakia, and … Read more
The second wave of COVID-19 hit India at the end of March 2021. In April, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) sent doctors and nurses to work in Mumbai’s Jumbo Hospital that had a capacity for 2,000 patients. Teams also adapted regular medical projects to support patients receiving care for HIV (in Manipur), tuberculosis (TB) … Read more
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
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