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About Us

How we work

See what triggers an intervention and how supply and logistics allow our teams to respond quickly.

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How we're run

Discover our governance and what it means to be an association. Find a quick visual guide to our offices around the world.

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Reports and financials

Read through our annual financial and activity reports, and find out about where our funds come from and how they are spent.

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Accountability

Read the policies, reports, and plans on how we address issues like racism and reduce our carbon footprint, ensuring our actions align with the highest ethical standards.

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What we do

Médecins Sans Frontières brings medical humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics or healthcare exclusion.

In Focus Rohingya refugee crisis Mediterranean migration DRC Ebola outbreaks Discover our projects by country

Where we work

In more than 70 countries, Médecins Sans Frontières provides medical humanitarian assistance to save lives and ease the suffering of people in crisis situations.

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Featured Haiti Palestine Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

MSF Websites

A Global Network
Our offices around the world
Our offices around the world
Other Sites
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MSF Access

MSF Access pushes for access to, and the development of, life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, diagnostic tests and vaccines for people in our programmes and beyond.

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CRASH

Based in Paris, CRASH conducts and directs studies and analysis of MSF actions. They participate in internal training sessions and assessment missions in the field.

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UREPH

Based in Geneva, UREPH (or Research Unit) aims to improve the way MSF projects are implemented in the field and to participate in critical thinking on humanitarian and medical action.

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ARHP

Based in Barcelona, ARHP documents and reflects on the operational challenges and dilemmas faced by the MSF field teams.

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MSF Analysis

Based in Brussels, MSF Analysis intends to stimulate reflection and debate on humanitarian topics organised around the themes of migration, refugees, aid access, health policy and the environment in which aid operates.

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MSF Supply

This logistical and supply centre in Brussels provides storage of and delivers medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.

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MSF Logistique

This supply and logistics centre in Bordeaux, France, provides warehousing and delivery of medical equipment, logistics and drugs for international purchases for MSF missions.

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Amsterdam Procurement Unit

This logistical centre in Amsterdam purchases, tests, and stores equipment including vehicles, communications material, power supplies, water-processing facilities and nutritional supplements.

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Brazilian Medical Unit

BRAMU specialises in neglected tropical diseases, such as dengue and Chagas, and other infectious diseases. This medical unit is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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MSF Medical Guidelines

Our medical guidelines are based on scientific data collected from MSF’s experiences, the World Health Organization (WHO), other renowned international medical institutions, and medical and scientific journals.

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Epicentre

Providing epidemiological expertise to underpin our operations, conducting research and training to support our goal of providing medical aid in areas where people are affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or excluded from health care.

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Evaluation Units

Evaluation Units have been established in Vienna, Stockholm, and Paris, assessing the potential and limitations of medical humanitarian action, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of our medical humanitarian work.

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LGBTQI+ Inclusion in Health Settings

MSF works with LGBTQI+ populations in many settings over the last 25-30 years. LGBTQI+ people face healthcare disparities with limited access to care and higher disease rates than the general population.

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LUXOR

The Luxembourg Operational Research (LuxOR) unit coordinates field research projects and operational research training, and provides support for documentation activities and routine data collection.

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MSF Academy for Healthcare

To upskill and provide training to locally-hired MSF staff in several countries, MSF has created the MSF Academy for Healthcare.

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Humanitarian Law

This Guide explains the terms, concepts, and rules of humanitarian law in accessible and reader-friendly alphabetical entries.

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MSF Paediatric Days

The MSF Paediatric Days is an event for paediatric field staff, policy makers and academia to exchange ideas, align efforts, inspire and share frontline research to advance urgent paediatric issues of direct concern for the humanitarian field.

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MSF Foundation

The MSF Foundation aims to create a fertile arena for logistics and medical knowledge-sharing to meet the needs of MSF and the humanitarian sector as a whole.

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DNDi

A collaborative, patients’ needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development organisation that is developing new treatments for neglected diseases, founded in 2003 by seven organisations from around the world.

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MSF Science Portal

Our digital portal dedicated to sharing the latest medical evidence from our humanitarian activities around the globe.

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Noma

Noma is a preventable and treatable neglected disease, but 90 per cent of people will die within the first two weeks of infection if they do not receive treatment.

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TIC

The TIC is aiming to change how MSF works to better meet the evolving needs of our patients.

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Telemedicine

MSF's telemedicine hub aims to overcome geographic barriers for equitable, accessible, and quality patient care.

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Sweden Innovation Unit

Launched in 2012, the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit deploys a human-centered approach for promoting a culture of innovation within MSF.

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Geo MSF

The GeoMSF platform is a dynamic one-stop-shop website for all of MSF's GIS related services and products. Access maps and applications through the catalogue, request geographical support, or produce a map on GeoMSF.

GeoMSF
MSF’s Dr Mikhail Khmyz (right) and social worker Roman Kuchko stand outside MSF’s office in Minsk, the Republic of Belarus. MSF’s Dr Khmyz says MSF’s TB program in Belarus targets patients with the hardest to treat forms of the disease. ‘The first patients we admitted were people on palliative treatment. It means they were receiving treatment for the relief of their symptoms, but no TB treatment’. That’s what happens when a patient has suffered repeated failures of treatment and the doctors see that this strain of the infection is resistant to available medicines. The last hope for these patients are Bedaquiline and Delamanid, the first new TB drugs developed in nearly 50 years.
Memoria Internacional 2017

Bielorrusia

El doctor Mijail Khmiz y el trabajador social Roman Kuchko en la oficina de MSF en Minsk.
© Victoria Gendina/MSF
Ebola disease in DRC: find out how we're responding
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Indice

OT installs an external fixator. Multidisciplinary management on a polytrauma (the 5 to 6 photos that follow). OT pose d’un fixateur externe. Prise en charge multidisciplinaire sur un polytraumatisé (les 5 à 6 photos qui suivent).
Países
Destroyed building in Banki
Resumen del año
A young Syrian boy was hit by an astray bullet while being home.The bullet landed in his chest and went straight through his lungs. MSF medical teams in the ER of Tal Abyad hospital are trying to save his life.
Cirugía de urgencias ante la opinión pública... y en las guerras olvidadas
Men detaineed in Abu Salim detention centre. Detainees spend days and months in Libyan detention centres, without knowing when they will be released.
Decisiones difíciles: dar atención médica en los centros de detención de Libia
Children are playing in the Bidibidi camp. On the background we can see some shelters and the water tank provide by MSF.
Sudán del Sur sin fronteras: los esfuerzos de MSF para ayudar a los desplazados
In the recovery tent of the cholera treatment centre at the Qaeda hospital, MSF health promotion team teaches former patients and caretakers some good practices to avoid cholera. Here, patients are taught the best way to wash their hands. Al Thawra hospital / Qaeda / Ibb Governorate.
El cólera: fácil de tratar y prevenir, pero sigue devastando comunidades
Din Savorn, 50, poses with his children at his apartment in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 20, April 2017.
Hepatitis C: nuestra lucha por propagar la cura
Gloria Chipasula (Left), 11 years old, HIV and TB positive patient, stands outside her family house as MSF international staff doctor from Rwanda checks her X-Ray looking for TB evidences.
2017 en cifras
Ismail, aged 11, is given diphtheria anti-toxin by MSF doctors Beatriz and Mariela in a treatment centre in Moynarghona.
Voces desde el terreno

Regiones

The old man on the left has had a festering hole in the head for 3 years. He has had his wound cleaned and his bandage dressed every three days for a year at the Old Fangak hospital. A discussion begins between Florence (right) the medical director, the surgeon Gilles (out of frame) and Julie Malcolm Wyzyloski, the nurse of the operating room to know if a surgical intervention is desirable. The conclusion will be that there is nothing to do but cure the symptom for fear of triggering a fatal process. So far, the patient does not suffer. Le vieil homme à gauche a un trou dans la tête suppurant depuis 3 ans. Il vient faire nettoyer sa plaie et refaire son pansement tous les trois jours, depuis une année, dans la clinique de Old Fangak. Une discussion s’engage entre Florence (droite) la responsable médicale, le chirurgien Gilles (hors cadre) et Julie Malcolm Wyzyloski, l’infirmière du bloc opératoire pour savoir si une intervention chirurgicale est souhaitable. La conclusion sera qu’il n’y a rien à faire d’autre que de soigner le symptôme de crainte de déclencher un processus fatal. Jusqu’à présent, le patient ne souffre pas.
Africa
Young girls from low income families in Tondo, Manila, are seen in a Likhaan clinic before ther free HPV vaccinations.
Asia & Pacific
Guests disembark from Vos Prudence in Palermo, Italy. MSF vessel Vos Prudence rescued a total of 726 people from the Mediterranean Sea over 2 days on June 8th and 9th, including 52 children.
Europe & Central Asia
Alan García, psicólogo de MSF, da atención psicológica a una estudiante de la escuela secundaria Cobao 23 de Ixhuatan durante un taller de movilización comunitaria donde se informa de que hacer en caso de seísmo Alan García, a MSF psychologist, gives psychological care to a student at the Cobao 23 secondary school in Ixhuatan during a community mobilisation workshop, where information is given about what to do in the event of an earthquake
The Americas
The newly renovated Intensive Care unit in Sulaymaniyah Emergency Hospital was opened the 19 November after a complete reconstruction done by MSF. Sulaymaniyah Emergency Hospit is the only trauma facility in Sulaymaniyah Governorate treating all people with acute medical and surgical illness. Over the last two years, there has been a significant rise in the hospital’s catchment population (currently over 2.5 million people) due to the influx of internally displaced persons from neighbouring conflict zones. MSF has been working in Sulaymaniyah Emergency Hospital since January 2016, with the aim to reduce patient mortality rate by improving quality of care in both the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the Emergency Department (ER). This is done through improved quality of patient care and structural renovation of the ER & ICU medical facilities.
Middle East & North Africa

MSF en Bielorrusia En 2017, MSF mantuvo su apoyo al Ministerio de Salud en el tratamiento de pacientes con tuberculosis multirresistente a los medicamentos (TB-MDR).
Bielorrusia - Activity report 2017 map in spanish
© MSF

31

31

pacientes con TB-MDR iniciaron tratamiento

Según el Informe Mundial sobre la Tuberculosis publicado en 2017 por la Organización Mundial de la Salud, Bielorrusia es uno de los países con mayor carga de TB-MDR del mundo. MSF colabora con el Ministerio de Salud en cuatro centros especializados: el Centro Científico y Práctico de Neumología y Tuberculosis de la República, los dispensarios 1 y 2 de la ciudad de Minsk y el hospital de TB de Volkovichi (en la región de Minsk).

A finales de 2017, MSF también comenzó a tratar a los convictos con TB-MDR del centro penitenciario Colonia 12 de Orsha. Tras una revisión realizada por MSF en 2016 que identificó el alcoholismo como principal factor de riesgo para la mala adherencia al tratamiento en esta cárcel, MSF explora ahora nuevas medidas para abordar este problema.

A finales de 2017, MSF daba tratamiento a 59 pacientes con tuberculosis extrarresistente mediante nuevos tratamientos a base de bedaquilina y/o delamanida. Este proyecto sigue formando parte del estudio lanzado por la alianza endTB en más de 15 países para encontrar tratamientos más cortos, menos tóxicos, más eficaces y con menos efectos secundarios debilitantes. MSF lleva a cabo este estudio en asociación con Partners in Health e Interactive Research and Development. Desde agosto de 2015, han sido reclutados 81 pacientes, 31 de ellos en 2017.

Además, a finales de diciembre de 2017, el ensayo clínico pionero TB Practecal recibió autorización oficial para admitir a pacientes, tras un año de preparativos en el centro de Minsk para cumplir con los estrictos requisitos pertinentes.

30

3

Nº de trabajadores en 2017

1.6 M

1.6 M

Gasto (en euros)

2015

2015

Año en el que MSF trabajó por primera vez en el país

Voces desde el terreno

Yuri, Bielorrusia: “Los médicos me dijeron que era la última oportunidad”

Yuri, de 38 años de edad, fue el primer paciente que completó el tratamiento de la tuberculosis en el programa que MSF gestiona en Bielorrusia en colaboración con el Ministerio de Salud.

Supo que estaba enfermo en 2013. “Me sentía débil, perdía peso y empecé a tener fiebre. Fui al médico, pensando que era un resfriado”. Tras conocer la verdad, Yuri estaba demasiado asustado como para llamar a la enfermedad por su nombre, preocupado no tanto por su propia salud o su vida como por la reacción de los demás. “Pensé que todo había terminado, que todos se apartarían de mí”.

Cuando MSF inició su programa de tratamiento en 2015, Yuri llevaba ya dos años de lucha contra la enfermedad y le habían diagnosticado la cepa extrarresistente. “Los médicos me dijeron: ‘Esta es la última oportunidad’. Cada vez estaba peor”. Aceptó ingresar en el programa de MSF. “Mejoré de inmediato: no me encontraba mejor, seguía sin apetito, pero las pruebas y las radiografías… Todo el mundo estaba sorprendido. En octubre las pruebas salieron limpias. Todo estaba limpio”.

“En dos años claro que te cansas. ¿Pero qué otra cosa puedes hacer? Si no fuera por el tratamiento, ahora mismo no estaríamos hablando”.

The first patient has successfully finished their TB treatment at MSF’s project in the Republic of Belarus in Eastern Europe. 38 year old Yury had a form of TB that was resistant to both 1st and 2nd line TB drugs. After two years of treatment that wasn’t working, he was left with no other options, until MSF started a new program in the country in 2015. ‘My doctors told me – this is the only chance,’ he says. ‘It was getting worse and worse. I had drug resistance.They told me existing drugs won’t help,’ Yury recalls. Yury was admitted to MSF’s program which is part of the endTB partnership, aiming to find shorter, less toxic and more effective treatments for drug-resistant TB. Yury was put on a new regimen that contained Bedaquiline, a drug that he was previously unable to access. Bedaquiline and Delamanid are the first two new TB drugs developed in nearly 50 years and offer new hope for patients with drug resistant forms of the disease. ‘Then it was immediate – in two days they inserted a port (an implanted system for continuous intravenous infusions) and the treatment started. Imipenem, Bedaquiline and several other medicines, that’s it. And I started to improve immediately. I didn’t feel better, I had no appetite. But the tests, the X-rays – everybody was surprised! They said: “That’s something! It’s fantastic! You have such a good dynamic!” Excellent dynamic. And already in October I had clear tests. Everything was clear. Everybody was surprised – nurses, doctors. And of course they were telling me don’t even think of skipping the treatment, you need to continue it,’ he says. Over a year later, Yury is now cured of the disease.
Yuri es el primer paciente que ha finalizado con éxito su tratamiento en el programa de TB de MSF en Bielorrusia.
© Victoria Gendina/MSF