Medical Issues

Chagas is not as well known as diseases such as malaria or cholera yet it affects between six and seven million people and kills up to 12,500 each year.

Cholera is preventable and easily treated, yet it infects millions of people each year and causes up to 143,000 deaths worldwide.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Roughly 80 percent of confirmed cases of COVID-19 experience a mild respiratory illness but it has a higher rate of severe complications for vulnerable people – than other viruses such as flu.

What good is a breakthrough treatment if the people who need it can’t afford it?

An obstetric fistula is a hole between the vagina and the bladder or rectum, through which urine or stool leaks continuously. They are devastating injuries resulting from complicated childbirths, affecting more than two million women worldwide.

Since its discovery in 1981, HIV/AIDS has killed more than 25 million people. HIV gradually weakens the body’s immune system, usually over a period of up to 10 years after infection.

Kala azar is the second largest parasitic killer in the world - only Malaria is more deadly. Along with Chagas disease and sleeping sickness, kala azar is one of the most dangerous neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

The increase in intensity of the Israeli bombing and the geographical expansion in recent weeks has led to massive displacement, with many families displaced for several times. More than a million people are reported to be displaced in the country and more than 1,900 have already been killed, according to the authorities—surpassing the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006. 

Every year, malaria kills around 660,000 people and infects more than 200 million. Ninety percent of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been treating acute malnutrition since our founders first responded in Biafra in southern Nigeria in 1971. 

Malnutrition disrupts a person’s optimal growth, development and wellbeing, and can have long-lasting if not fatal consequences. It affects people of all ages around the world.

Many women across the world give birth without medical assistance, massively increasing the risk of complications or death. Ninety nine percent of these deaths are in developing countries. The majority are preventable with appropriate care.