Stories & News

After sixteen years, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is handing over its emergency room services at the district Headquarters hospital to the medical authorities in Chaman, a town 130 kilometers north of Quetta, Pakistan, on the border between Balochistan and Afghanistan.

Dr Lisa Searle is a general practitioner from Tasmania who has built a career with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), completing 11 assignments since 2010.

After the devastating monsoons in Pakistan in 2022, MSF set up a community-based malnutrition program in the remote part of Dadu district.

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.

Catastrophic flooding began in June, and the situation remains an emergency, with critical humanitarian needs. The current response is inadequate. The basic needs of people living in the worst flood-affected areas such as access to essential food assistance, healthcare and safe drinking water, remain unmet. 

In 2022, MSF teams around the world continued to respond to crises, old and new. While COVID-19 was not the emergency it was in previous years, new challenges arose. The war in Ukraine escalated in February; the political, humanitarian and economic crises in Haiti deteriorated severely; cholera emerged on an exceptional scale in several countries. 

In has been more than three months since devastating floods caused vast damage across Pakistan and displaced millions, but only in recent weeks have waters started to recede and people been able to return home. 

Akeela, an Outreach Counsellor with MSF since 2020, lived in the village of Mir Gul Hassan Manju Shori Barun Naseerabad which is around 5 kilometres from Dera Murad Jamali (DMJ) in Balochistan, one of the areas hardest hit by monsoon rains and extreme flooding that left one third of Pakistan underwater. After losing her home, she is now responding to the emergency on the front line.

Nurses and midwives are the backbone of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) multidisciplinary teams. They also fulfill diverse and critical roles in health promotion, patient education and community care. 

Throughout 2020, MSF is celebrating the efforts of nurses and midwives and highlighting their daily contributions in and alongside MSF projects.