Stories & News

Three years into its campaign to have noma recognised as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) welcomes the decision by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), to include noma in the WHO’s official list of NTDs.

Climate change has disastrous health impacts. As a medical humanitarian organisation, we are already seeing these impacts on the people we treat in over 70 countries around the world.

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

Over the past three years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of children admitted to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospitals in Yemen for measles. In the first half of 2023, the number of measles patients received in MSF-supported facilities has nearly tripled, at almost 4,000, compared to the whole of 2022.

Cervical cancer is the second deadliest cancer in low- and middle-income countries.

In Malawi in East Africa, where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) operates, over 4,000 Malawian women fall sick with cervical cancer every year. 

Cervical cancer accounts for 37 per cent of new cancers in women in Malawi. Since 2018, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been working to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer and bring down deaths from the disease in the districts of Blantyre and Chiradzulu.

MSF head of mission Marion Péchayre explains how.  

Since 3rd of March 2022, more than 33,600 confirmed people have been reported as having cholera in the country and more than 1,093 people died. 

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a skin infection caused by a parasite transmitted by the bite of a phlebotomine sandfly. 

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treats patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis at seven specialist facilities in the cities of Quetta, Kuchlak in Balochistan and Peshawar and Bannu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In Pakistan, the neglected tropical disease cutaneous leishmaniasis is considered a public health burden. 

In collaboration with health authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is providing medical care for cutaneous leishmaniasis.

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.