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In more than 70 countries, Médecins Sans Frontières provides medical humanitarian assistance to save lives and ease the suffering of people in crisis situations.
We set up the MSF Access Campaign in 1999 to push for access to, and the development of, life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, diagnostic tests and vaccines for people in our programmes and beyond.
Based in Paris, CRASH conducts and directs studies and analysis of MSF actions. They participate in internal training sessions and assessment missions in the field.
Based in Geneva, UREPH (or Research Unit) aims to improve the way MSF projects are implemented in the field and to participate in critical thinking on humanitarian and medical action.
Based in Brussels, MSF Analysis intends to stimulate reflection and debate on humanitarian topics organised around the themes of migration, refugees, aid access, health policy and the environment in which aid operates.
This logistical and supply centre in Brussels provides storage of and delivers medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.
This supply and logistics centre in Bordeaux, France, provides warehousing and delivery of medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.
This logistical centre in Amsterdam purchases, tests, and stores equipment including vehicles, communications material, power supplies, water-processing facilities and nutritional supplements.
BRAMU specialises in neglected tropical diseases, such as dengue and Chagas, and other infectious diseases. This medical unit is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Our medical guidelines are based on scientific data collected from MSF’s experiences, the World Health Organization (WHO), other renowned international medical institutions, and medical and scientific journals.
Providing epidemiological expertise to underpin our operations, conducting research and training to support our goal of providing medical aid in areas where people are affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or excluded from health care.
Evaluation Units have been established in Vienna, Stockholm, and Paris, assessing the potential and limitations of medical humanitarian action, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of our medical humanitarian work.
MSF works with LGBTQI+ populations in many settings over the last 25-30 years. LGBTQI+ people face healthcare disparities with limited access to care and higher disease rates than the general population.
The Luxembourg Operational Research (LuxOR) unit coordinates field research projects and operational research training, and provides support for documentation activities and routine data collection.
The MSF Paediatric Days is an event for paediatric field staff, policy makers and academia to exchange ideas, align efforts, inspire and share frontline research to advance urgent paediatric issues of direct concern for the humanitarian field.
The MSF Foundation aims to create a fertile arena for logistics and medical knowledge-sharing to meet the needs of MSF and the humanitarian sector as a whole.
A collaborative, patients’ needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development organisation that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases, founded in 2003 by seven organisations from around the world.
Noma is a preventable and treatable neglected disease, but 90 per cent of people will die within the first two weeks of infection if they do not receive treatment.
Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s biggest global health crises. Killing 1.3 million people in 2022, TB is the world’s second deadliest infectious disease after COVID-19.
Obsolete treatments, the lack of an effective vaccine, and the lack of suitable diagnostic tools make it difficult to control the global TB epidemic. In 2022, 7.5 million people across 192 countries and areas were diagnosed with TB.
Some gains have been made in recent years; the first new TB drugs in half a century and the trial of a shorter course of treatment for drug-resistant TB. But the harsh reality remains - 10.6 million people fell sick with TB and 410,000 developed multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) in 2022, which is much harder to treat. Only about one-third of people with DR-TB accessed treatment in 2021. The majority go undiagnosed and therefore untreated.
22,700
22,7
People started on TB treatment in MSF programmes in 2023
2,700
2,7
People started on drug-resistant TB treatment in MSF programmes in 2023
The most widely-used test for diagnosing active TB in low- and middle-income countries relies on examining a patient’s phlegm under a microscope. This method, developed nearly 140 years ago, detects less than half of all TB cases and largely fails to detect the disease in children and people co-infected with HIV – who usually can’t produce the sputum needed – and those with drug-resistant forms of TB. A diagnostic test, Xpert MTB/RIF, was introduced and we use it in many of our projects, but it can't be used in many resource-limited settings.
A course of treatment for uncomplicated TB takes a minimum of six months. Drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) treatment requires taking a cocktail of drugs and can take up to two years or more, but trials are ongoing to treat it in six to nine months. It is vital that a patient completes their entire course of treatment, even when they start to feel better; incomplete treatment can lead to drug resistance developing. Decentralising treatment by having people cared for at home can help them adhere to treatment and overcome any obstacles they may face.
When patients are resistant to the two most powerful first-line antibiotics (rifampicin and isoniazid), they are considered to have multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). Treatment is long and arduous, with the drugs having many potential side-effects, including psychosis and deafness. People can take as many as 20 pills a day for two years - only to have a cure rate of little better than half. Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) occurs when a patient is resistant to second-line drugs. Only a third of people with XDR-TB are cured.
Most drugs to treat TB are old and toxic. But in the last decade, bedaquiline, delamanid and pretomanid, three new TB drugs - the first in half a century - were developed, giving patients hope and treatment providers options. But making these drugs available to patients who desperately need them has been painfully slow. We estimated that, in 2016, only around one in eight people with DR-TB who could have benefited from the lifesaving newer drugs bedaquiline and delamanid were treated with them.
Most of the drugs used to treat TB are decades old, while some were not originally developed for TB use, and/or have toxic side effects. Treatment itself for DR-TB can take up to two years. For these reasons, research into new, shorter, more effective drug regimens is urgently needed. We are participating in two clinical trials, EndTB and PRACTECAL, to find new treatment regimens. The EndTB trial enrolled its final patients in October 2021. In the same month, the PRACTECAL trial announced in preliminary results that its six-month, all-oral regimen cured nine out of 10 patients.
We produce important research based on our field experience. So far, we have published articles in over 100 peer-reviewed journals. These articles have often changed clinical practice and have been used for humanitarian advocacy. Read all our Tuberculosis-related articles on our dedicated Field Research website.
Around 630,000 people died from HIV-related causes, while 1.3 million people became newly infected with the HIV virus in 2022.
India
In India, we focus mainly on mental healthcare, screening and treatment for HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and hepatitis C, and support to victims of sexual and gender-based violence.
South Africa
South Africa has the largest HIV patient cohort in the world and is helping to lead the way in gaining access to new treatments for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
