Stories & News

Senior Health Promotion Manager, Fatumazahra Khalif (Fatma), describes the challenges facing people in the areas of Somalia where she works, and says health promotion is vital. In this profile she describes the impact of health promotion, including a moving patient story.

More than 140,000 people, mostly South Sudanese women and children fleeing from Khartoum, have newly arrived in White Nile state since conflict broke out in Sudan and are now facing huge unmet needs for food, shelter, healthcare and water and sanitation.

More than two months on, despite the magnitude of Cyclone Mocha, scaling up of an emergency response to address the immense needs of people impacted is still not happening due to restrictions imposed by military authorities.

Neal Russell is a paediatric doctor and advisor based in London and has been working with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) for 10 years. Following a recent visit to MSF’s project in Chad’s eastern region of Sila, near the border with Sudan, Neal provides his account of the situation he witnessed there. 

MSF calls again on Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) to withdraw or abandon extended patents on lifesaving TB drug as main patent expires in India on 18 July, opening the door to more affordable generic brands.

The skin disease scabies is affecting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people living in refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district. The situation demands an urgent response. 

Sally Thomas has done 10 assignments with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). She has a degree in architecture and a diploma in project management. She started her career with MSF by working as a construction logistics manager on a project in Nairobi in 2009, and then went on to work in Nigeria, South Sudan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Iraq, Yemen. She then took the position of deputy head of mission in Syria and her most recent assignment was in Libya. She spoke to us about her work overseas and what the role of a logistician involves. 

James Neeson grew up on a crop farm in rural Western Victoria and went on to study international business, where he majored in supply chain management at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He worked in a few rural areas as a supply chain focal point delivering farming equipment in Western Australia, as well as in Tonga as a procurement officer supporting supply chain systems for the Ministry of Health.  

Day after day, the inhabitants of Haiti’s capital risk being kidnapped, injured or even killed in street clashes between gangs, civilian self-defence brigades and the police.

Jeanne Vidal has worked as a water and sanitation logistician and a logistics team leader on seven assignments with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). She has worked on projects in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and most recently Sierra Leone. She spoke to us about her work overseas and what the role of a water and sanitation logistician (or 'watsan’) involves.