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.
Measles and malnutrition increasing in Sudan's Darfur region
Press Release28 April 2004
Paris - Because of the lack of appropriate, urgently needed aid, the health of displaced people in Sudan’s Darfur region – particularly children – is radically worsening, according to the international medical aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
As a preventive measure, teams from MSF have vaccinated 15,000 children against measles in Mornay. Unfortunately, vaccination efforts were delayed in Nyertiti and Zalinge, and MSF teams have had to treat hundreds of children with measles.
Measles first affects children weakened by poor nutrition, and complications from the highly contagious disease can be fatal. MSF teams also see a drastic decline in people’s nutritional status, particularly among children.
From April 19-23 in Mornay, where nearly 80,000 displaced people are gathered, 107 new patients were admitted to MSF’s intensive therapeutic feeding center, which is now treating 333 severely malnourished children. An additional 1,623 moderately malnourished children are being treated in supplementary feeding centers.
On March 15, the World Food Program conducted a general distribution consisting of two weeks’ worth of food supplies. Food stocks were exhausted in early April. The only distribution since then occurred on April 22 and 23, when MSF distributed survival rations for 14,500 children.
MSF teams in Mornay are supplying 550,000 liters of drinking water per day because of major problems with access to water at the site. In Zalinge and Nyertiti, MSF is treating 250 and 80 severely malnourished children, respectively, and caring for 950 in a supplementary feeding center.
Despite announcements of forthcoming aid, assistance is utterly inadequate. Mobilization of aid efforts is slow and the few organizations operating in Darfur cannot meet the full range of needs. As a result, few of the estimated 600,000-800,000 people displaced by violence in Darfur are receiving food assistance.
Furthermore, shelters and drinking water are in very short supply and access to medical care is extremely limited. People in the region are completely dependent on aid to survive. If promised aid does not materialize quickly, the decline already underway will only worsen.
Without an urgent response and the massive and immediate pre-positioning of food, medicines and shelters, the threat to the survival of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons will increase when the rainy season begins in May and roads become impassable, further hindering the delivery of assistance. Urgent action is required.
Nearly 40 MSF volunteers and hundreds of Sudanese are providing medical, food and water and sanitation assistance to nearly 250,000 displaced people gathered at sites in Mornay Zalinge, Nyertiti and Kerenik Garsila and at four sites outside Bindissi, Deleig, Umkher and Mukjar. Assessments are underway in the North Darfur region, in El Fasher, Kutum (where nearly 108,000 displaced people have gathered) and Kebkabya (where nearly 45,000 have gathered).
The teams are seeing patients, referring the severely wounded, treating moderately and severely malnourished children, providing drinking water and distributing basic supplies. MSF volunteers are also working at the El Genina hospital. MSF has been present in the region since mid-December 2003. MSF is also providing aid to Sudanese refugees who fled to Chad in the frontier villages of Adre, Birak and Tine.
