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.
SAMU provides strategic, clinical and implementation support to various MSF projects with medical activities related to HIV and TB. This medical unit is based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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 situation for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Herat, Afghanistan, has deteriorated considerably over the past weeks. Over 10,000 people have been moved from the inner parts of town to the Shayadee-camp, just outside the town. That camp is already overcrowded and MSF estimates that some 3,500 people remain just outside the camp.
At the same time, winter is starting with the first cold winds. The Shayadee-camp is housing some 14,000 people. Among them are new arrivals from the provinces of Ghor and eastern Badghis, who have fled the drought and the anticipation of the harsh circumstances of the coming winter.
The sanitary conditions around the camp are horrendous. The families who are staying outside the camp are separated by a maximum of three metres, have only open latrines and no shelter from the cold winds. The only assistance they receive so far is daily bread rations from the Red Crescent. MSF has taken responsibility to co-ordinate the assistance in the Shayadee-camp.
Meanwhile, the registration and distribution of shelter material and other relief items has started. The water-distribution and the sanitary conditions should improve soon, but the distribution of food will not start before November 1. However, by Monday, food donations will be distributed by ICRC.
An MSF mobile clinic started last Monday. Upper respiratory infections and diarrhoea are the most frequent ailments. So far over 250 people have been treated. A rapid assessment into malnutrition according to the MUAC-method started last Thursday in conjunction with a mass measles vaccination campaign and a vitamin A distribution.
The cholera-intervention in Bala Morghab ended last Wednesday. In the MSF cholera treatment centre over 800 patients were treated. In additon, more than 800 wells in the surroundings of Bala Morghab were chlorinated.
