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.
MSF welcomes WHO support of twice-a-day pill for AIDS, but more ambition needed to bring prices down
Press Release1 December 2003
Geneva - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes the ambitious objectives unveiled by the World Health Organisation today to get three million people with AIDS on treatment by 2005. WHO has immediately moved closer to meeting this target by announcing that a quality-assured twice-a-day pill is available to treat AIDS.
Getting AIDS medicines to the millions who need it requires treatment models that are much better adapted to resource-poor settings.
"Reducing the number of pills that patients have to take makes treatment much simpler and more affordable" says Dr Morten Rostrup, President of the International Council of MSF.
The twice-a-day pill, which combines three different medicines, is made by different generics companies. Today, Cipla is offering this for $US140 to a number of organisations, including MSF. Quality has been assured by the WHO pre-qualification process. The vast majority of the 9,000 patients currently treated by MSF's AIDS programmes will benefit from the latest price reduction.
However, in their plan to fight AIDS, WHO's target price for treatment is $US 400 for 2004. "WHO's drug price targets lack ambition and do not reflect prices that are currently available. Today, drug prices have fallen by another 50%. WHO should encourage this trend in order that universal access to AIDS treatment become a reality," says Dr Rostrup.
To date the brand pharmaceutical companies have not co-operated to combine their medicines into a single pill; only generics companies offer these products. Governments must therefore make use of the safeguards in their patent laws to overcome patent barriers to accessing these simple and affordable medicines.
"Every time drug prices come down, more people can afford treatment," said Dr Rostrup. "But for the poorest, no price will be affordable: governments of both developing and developed countries must meet these costs. This means more international funding to fight AIDS."
