For five years, MSF mobile teams have provided basic healthcare and psychosocial support to people living close to the frontline in eastern Ukraine. As public health facilities in the country’s conflict-affected regions gradually resumed services, we began transferring patients to the Ministry of Health for treatment. By the end of the year, they were all receiving care in the public system.   

Treating hepatitis C in southern Ukraine  

In Mykolaiv, we support the Ministry of Health in diagnosing and treating people with hepatitis C. Patients are treated with the highly effective direct-acting antiviral drugs daclatasvir and sofosbuvir. In 2019, psychosocial support and health education helped improve adherence to treatment and combat stigma and discrimination. This new model of care has achieved a cure rate of 97.4 per cent.  

Drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) 

In 2019, the project we run in Zhytomyr in partnership with the Ministry of Health initiated operational research to demonstrate that an effective model of treatment for DR-TB can be implemented in Ukraine. It involves reliable diagnostics, psychological and social support, and newer, more effective all-oral drugs (bedaquiline and delamanid), which have fewer severe side effects. Patients will spend less time in hospital and their treatment regimens will be shorter, lasting from nine to 12 months.  

MSF is also building a state-of-the-art laboratory in the TB dispensary, which will be the first in the region with such an advanced level of biological safety.