Stories & News

Several countries across West Africa are experiencing some of the worst outbreaks of vaccine-preventable disease diphtheria ever recorded on the continent.

A diphtheria outbreak is surging through Nigeria and neighbouring countries, requiring an urgent increase in access to medicines and vaccination.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are providing support to the provincial health services of Zambézia, Central Mozambique, in the large-scale response to an outbreak of cholera following  the second landfall of tropical cyclone Freddy in mid-March.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in Haiti are supporting the cholera vaccination campaign launched by the national health authorities.

This campaign is the latest effort in response to the resurgence of the disease, which has affected more than 15,000 people and caused more than 300 deaths in the country since the end of September. 

Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is contributing to the national vaccination campaign against cholera launched by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health’s by vaccinating people in Arsal, Akkar, Tripoli and Baalbak - Hermel in the north and northeast of Lebanon where most cholera cases are registered in the country.

600,000 cholera vaccine doses received by Lebanon, as first phase procurement, are to be administered in coordination with various international and local actors.

The uneven progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unequal access to vaccines and treatments calls for locally tailored approaches.

Isabelle Defourny, Director of Operations for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), discusses the 'one-size-fits-all' approach to COVID-19 vaccination advocated for by the UN, and the urgent need for vaccines in low income countries.

The World Health Organization’s declaration of Omicron as a “variant of concern” shows how critical it is to lift global COVID-19 vaccination rates. With the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of abating, prioritising access to COVID-19 medical tools for everyone, everywhere is essential.

Low vaccination rates increase the likelihood of new variants, such as Omicron, appearing. If we vaccinate the world more quickly, the chance of mutations drops.

One year ago—and seven months into the COVID-19 pandemic—India and South Africa put forward the TRIPS Waiver proposal: a groundbreaking solution to lift intellectual property barriers on and ensure greater equity in access to any vaccines, tests, treatments or other medical tools needed to tackle COVID-19.  

Despite this waiver offering the chance to save millions of lives, a number of wealthy countries continue to block it.

The Australian government needs to support formal negotiations on the landmark intellectual property waiver being discussed today at the World Trade Organization meeting, says the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) and 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.