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Health promotion and in-house check ups in Bahia, Brazil
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Our teams are working to improve medical care for migrants and asylum seekers from Venezuela, as well as local communities.

Our activities are concentrated in the capital city, Boa Vista, and at the border town of Pacaraima, where most Venezuelans arrive to Brazil.   

We provide medical consultations, mental health assistance, and run health promotion activities. We reach our patients through mobile clinics at migrant hotspots, visits shelters and offer support to local health facilities. 

Our activities in 2022 in Brazil

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2022.

MSF in Brazil in 2022 In 2022, Médecins Sans Frontières conducted activities to assist the growing numbers of Venezuelan migrants arriving in Brazil. We also provided mental health care for people affected by floods and landslides.
Brazil IAR map 2022

The end of border closures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a huge increase in new arrivals at the end of 2021. The number of Venezuelans who crossed the border surpassed 160,000 in 2022, more than in the two previous years combined*. This placed an additional strain on already overburdened local healthcare facilities.

As a result, we scaled up our response in the northern state of Roraima, assisting with the provision of general healthcare, health promotion, mental health support, and sexual and reproductive health services, by running mobile clinics in migrant hotspots, shelters and informal settlements in the capital, Boa Vista, and in Pacaraima.

We also provided medical assistance to indigenous communities from Venezuela in rural areas around Pacaraima. These migrants are particularly vulnerable, due to the barriers they face in accessing the public health system.

In the first half of 2022, we offered mental health support and training for communities affected by severe floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Pernambuco. With search and rescue activities covered by local authorities, we focused on increasing access to mental health support. Our teams trained health workers, as well as civil servants such as teachers, social workers and community leaders, so that they could provide psychosocial support to survivors of the disaster, and also create a long-lasting local capacity to enable communities to respond to such events in the future. 

*IOM: https://brazil.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl1496/files/documents/Informe_Migracao-Venezuelana_Jan2017-Dez2022.pdf

 

In 2022
 
Brazil

Medical and psych care amidst the violence in Rio de Janeiro

Project Update 6 Mar 2008
 
Brazil

AIDS DRUGS: Brazil, Thailand override big pharma patents

Project Update 11 May 2007
 
Brazil

Action needed to tackle the second wave of the AIDS drug pricing crisis

Project Update 26 Jul 2005
 
Brazil

A slum in Brazil sees MSF presence in health and psycho-social support

Project Update 24 Sep 2003
 
Brazil

Brazil's Lula slams rich nations on trade

Project Update 2 Jun 2003
 
Brazil

Once again, MSF takes a licking

Project Update 14 Apr 2003