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.
The MSF Science Portal is a digital platform for Médecins Sans Frontières to share the medical evidence we gather as part of our medical humanitarian work aiding people and communities affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from health services.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has launched the Transformational Investment Capacity (TIC) to transform our ability to address the most pressing medical and humanitarian challenges around the world.
The Telemedicine program provides secure solutions designed to support the needs of healthcare professionals across MSF, while building a community of knowledge-sharing and clinical collaboration.
Launched in 2012, the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit deploys a human-centered approach for promoting a culture of innovation within MSF, in order to more effectively co-create innovations that save lives and alleviate suffering.
"Providing comprehensive treatment for patients with tuberculosis"
Photo Story25 October 2016
Providing comprehensive treatment for patients with tuberculosis Photo Gallery
Nischaya, an XDR-TB patient with her TB medication.
Atul Loke/Panos Pictures
Atul Loke/Panos Pictures
Sydelle WIllow Smith
Nanyanyiso Baloi takes her treatment regimen for pre-XDR-TB, which includes delamanid and bedaquiline.
Sydelle WIllow Smith
Sibongile Xesha during her consultation at the Town 2 Clinic, Kuyasa, Khayelitsha, Western Cape, South Africa.
Simbongile’s current DR-TB regimen: bedaquiline, linezolid, clofazimine, terizidone, levofloxacin, pyrazinamide.
Simbongile Xesha
“Last year, end- September, I started coughing and didn’t want to eat. My partner had XDR-TB so I probably caught it from him. He passed away in May this year.
I brought myself to the clinic and within a week, in October 2015 I started full treatment for XDR-TB, with monthly supplies of drugs from my local clinic, which included bedaquiline.
I live with my mum and two sisters, and our children.
I know from Dr Jenny that many patients need bedaquiline. I didn’t have to wait and was taking bedaquiline from the first day of treatment. I think that’s why my sputum started to change so quickly. I stick to my treatment same time every day and I go to a support group.
Today I work as a cashier at a frozen yoghurt place in Khayelitsha. I feel great. I’ve been taking bedaquiline for six months now. I take all the tablets at the same time. The medication makes me very nauseous and knocks me out for one or two hours. But it makes me strong too.”Sydelle WIllow Smith
TB doctor Irma Davitadze at work at the Regional Center of Infectious Pathology, AIDS and Tuberculosis in Batumi, Tbilisi. Georgia 2016
Daro Sulakauri/MSF
Kale Mantkava and his room at the TB hospital in Abastumani, a spa town in the country’s mountainous Meskheti region. The sanatorium was built in the 1920s and continues to serve its original purpose to this day, though only 70 of its 200-or-so rooms are in an acceptable state to host inpatients. MSF has worked here since 2014.
While unsure today, Kale believes he was diagnosed with TB in 1981 and first hospitalised in 1987. He spent part of the 90s in prison, and underwent treatment there for 18 months until his release in 1997. He didn’t feel any symptoms until 2011, when the disease flared up again.
“At the start [of the disease], most patients think they can take it easy as they don’t have severe pain. But they don’t know how far it can go,” he explains.Daro Sulakauri/MSF
Goderdzi Rajabishvili, an ambulatory patient at the National Centre for Tuberculosis and Lung Disease in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, receives his twice-daily infusion of imipenem, an antibiotic used to treat MDR-TB.
Daro Sulakauri/MSF
Giorgi Mikava is an inpatient at the National Centre for Tuberculosis and Lung Disease in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. He is 24 years old; it is his third stay in hospital. He abandoned his previous treatment when his sister, who was also being treated for tuberculosis at the same hospital, passed away due to complications brought on by her diabetes. He is now taking one of the new drugs, delamanid, which gives him some encouragement: “[I’m feeling] better than before. This treatment is giving better results but I haven’t recovered still.”
His focus is on finally beating the disease: “The first time I came here I was looking forward to escaping, but now I’m psychologically prepared, I’m calm and ready to follow the treatment.”Daro Sulakauri/MSF
XDR-TB patient Hanif, in a rickshaw, on his way to work in central Mumbai.
MSF in partnership with a local NGO facilitates vocational courses for recovering patients who are looking to return to working life after a long period of debilitating illness.
Hanif has been offered a job as a shoe-salesman in a shop. His manager has put him on a probationary period to see if he is fit enough to work. Every day, he travels for an hour on a train across town to reach the shop, located in a busy shopping area in downtown Mumbai.
“I think now I have ability to work. In the long run I would like to have my small business. This job is a kind of test for me, as I have come out of bed after so many months. Life has given me a second chance. My family has seen bad days, it is my responsibility to not to trouble them anymore and do something good.”
Hanif is 25 years old, lives in Mumbai, and is one of only a handful of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) patients in India lucky enough to be able to have acesss to the new drugs. After having failed treatment for the fourth time, Hanif was referred to the clinic of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organisation who since 2006 provides free diagnosis, treatment and support to patients with drug-resistant TB in Mumbai.Atul Loke/Panos Pictures
XDR-TB patient Hanif, at home in the Govandi area of Mumbai with his wife and youngest son.
“Now I want to spend more time with my children. I think god has given me my kids as a gift. I want to take good care of them, and offer them a better life then what I have experienced.”
Hanif is 25 years old, lives in Mumbai, and is one of only a handful of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) patients in India lucky enough to be able to have acesss to the new drugs. After having failed treatment for the fourth time, Hanif was referred to the clinic of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organisation who since 2006 provides free diagnosis, treatment and support to patients with drug-resistant TB in Mumbai.Atul Loke/Panos Pictures
XDR-TB patient Hanif, during his weekly consultation with Dr. Joan, at MSF’s clinic in Mumbai.
Hanif is 25 years old, lives in Mumbai, and is one of only a handful of extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) patients in India lucky enough to be able to have acesss to the new drugs. After having failed treatment for the fourth time, Hanif was referred to the clinic of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organisation who since 2006 provides free diagnosis, treatment and support to patients with drug-resistant TB in Mumbai.Atul Loke/Panos Pictures
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