For civilians in a conflict zone, bomb blasts don’t happen just to individuals, they happen to families and to communities. As trauma surgeons and humanitarians, we are always striving to take the best care of our patients possible, whether it is in countries like Syria, which receive a lot of attention, or like the Central African Republic, which suffer largely outside of the public consciousness. In all of these places, we see the effect of violence on families and communities, we feel it with our patients and our colleagues, and we seek to make it better.

Four years of civil conflict have taken a brutal toll on South Sudan and created one of the world’s worst displacement crises. Civilians have experienced extreme levels of violence and been forced from their homes. Two million people are currently displaced within the country, while another two million have sought refuge in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, and are scattered in camps along the borders.

In total in 2017, MSF staff treated 143,100 people for cholera in 13 countries, compared with 20,600 people in 2016. However, our response could have been more effective, if we, and other aid organisations, had been able to respond more quickly and implement the full range of tools that we now have at our disposal.

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) kills 400,000 people every year. Breakthrough medicines can cure the disease in just 12 weeks, but millions of people cannot access these lifesaving treatments. MSF provided HCV treatment with direct-acting antivirals to 5,926 people in 13 countries in 2017.