Stories & News

The COVID-19 epidemic has already spread to more than 100 countries around the world. These include countries whose health systems are fragile and where MSF teams have a long-standing presence, as well as regions such as Europe, where the capacities are more robust but where the epidemic is particularly virulent. Travel restrictions generated by the outbreak also directly affect MSF's work around the world. What questions does MSF face in this context? An interview with Clair Mills, MSF medical director. 

Tankred Stöbe, MSF emergency coordinator, visited several countries in South-East Asia to assess their preparedness for potential outbreaks of COVID-19 and the support MSF could provide at this stage. He participated in training sessions with healthcare staff in a hepatitis C clinic in Phnom Penh A similar training was held in a hospital in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, where MSF treats patients with tuberculosis. The training sessions helped to improve knowledge and reduce fear among the staff, two prerequisites for providing the best level of care to our patients.
 

In Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, recurring outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever are a pressing health concern. In many of the city’s suburbs, public water supply is unreliable, and leaking sewage pipes, pit latrines, and poor waste management contaminate the groundwater. Using innovative borehole technology and empowering communities to manage their own water points, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has developed a highly effective environmental health toolkit.

27 February 2020 – On 25 February, the Syrian government and its allies reportedly launched indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in Idlib governorate, northwestern Syria, including schools where displaced people had sought refuge, said the international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

In 2020, an estimated 342,000 women died of cervical cancer. More than 90 per cent of those women lived in low- and middle-income countries. In the same year, 604,000 new cases were diagnosed.