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MSF in Agok, South Sudan.

South Sudan faces many challenges, including ongoing conflict, displacement, food shortages/malnutrition, lack of social services including health care, and insecurity.  MSF hospitals have been under attack from different armed groups, putting the medical staff and patients at risk.
Cameroon

Ambulance fired on in South-West Cameroon

MSF reiterates that medical staff and facilities are not a target for attacks, following shots that were fired at an ambulance in South-West Cameroon. Statement - 4 Feb 2021
 
Members of various civil societies gathered outside the embassies of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and other countries which opposed a temporary patent waiver  on COVID-19 vaccines which was proposed to the World Trade Organization by South Africa and India. 

Picketers stood outside embassies and handed over letters calling on these countries to support the TRIPS Waiver to allow for more drug manufacturers to have access to vaccine designs.
Access to medicines

MSF urges wealthy countries not to block COVID-19 patent waiver

MSF urges wealthy countries which are opposing a proposal to waive patent rights on COVID-19 tools not to block it and ruin its lifesaving potential for billions of people in the rest of the world. Press Release - 3 Feb 2021
 
MOH medical stuff fulfilling daily activities at JMH . Maputo. February 2020
Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic

Ravaged by new strain, southern Africa must get COVID-19 vaccines

As Eswatini, Mozambique, Malawi are being overwhelmed by the second wave of COVID-19, these countries are yet to receive any doses of vaccines, leaving their frontline health workers exposed. Press Release - 3 Feb 2021
 
MSF staff transport a patient during a mobile clinic in Hawzen, northeast Tigray.
Ethiopia Tigray crisis

Ethiopia: “If seriously ill people can’t get to hospital, you can imagine the consequences”

Albert Viñas, the recently-returned emergency coordinator in Tigray, Ethiopia, describes the situation of people who've had to leave their homes, and the difficulty faced in trying to access medical care. Voices from the Field - 1 Feb 2021
 
A sexual assault survivor working on her body map during MSF's Body Mapping workshop, Rustenburg, June 2018. 
MSF facilitated a 2-day Body Mapping workshop attended by adolescent survivors of sexual violence from across the Rustenburg area. In Rustenburg, South Africa, a 2016 MSF survey revealed that 1 in 4 women between the age of 18-49 has been raped in her lifetime. As part of MSF's comprehensive sexual violence project in Rustenburg, Body Mapping is used to help survivors of sexual violence identify the internal and external scars and hardships that they are living with and working through. Body Maps comprise a life-size outline of the body, which the survivor "maps" with their experiences and emotions.
Safe abortion care

MSF welcomes reversal of the Global Gag Rule on safe abortion

The new United States government has rescinded the 'Global Gag Rule', which restricted rights and access to safe abortion care. MSF urges the US to expand access to services. Statement - 29 Jan 2021
 
An Afghan family try to cross the border between Italy and France.
Italy

Abandoned at the borders: stories of people on the move during winter

The numbers of migrants and refugees at Italy’s borders has increased in recent months. Their only assistance is from volunteer groups supported by MSF. Voices from the Field - 28 Jan 2021
 
The influx of these extremely vulnerable internally displaced people (IDPs) has exacerbated existing inequalities in Katasomwa, in the Kalehe Territory of South Kivu, in the eastern side of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Tensions between communities are materializing in the form of difficulty in accessing food resources and education, particularly for the displaced and local nomadic Pygmy communities.
Democratic Republic of Congo

South Kivu: An endless flight

Unrest in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced thousands to flee their homes. Many are in remote and under-resourced areas of South Kivu. Project Update - 28 Jan 2021
 
After being relatively spared by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Malawi is now being swept by a new, fast-spreading wave of the disease that is quickly overwhelming the health care system. In the first few weeks of January, the number of positive cases has doubled every four to five days and access to vaccines is still likely months away. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is launching an emergency intervention to support the local health authorities to treat the growing number of severe patients hospitalized the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre.
Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic

Malawi is overwhelmed by second wave of COVID-19

Faced by an increase in the number of people with the more contagious South Africa strain of coronavirus COVID-19, MSF teams are assisting an overwhelmed health system in Malawi. Interview - 27 Jan 2021
 
Kala azar sufferer Ruai Puot Malow (56 years) is assisted by his wife Yakuony Jock Deng (right) and a relative at a Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders hospital in Lankien, South Sudan, Tuesday, 13 Jan 2015.  Ruai was brought to the hospital by relatives who carried him for five hours through the bush to the MSF hospital after he suffered yet another outbreak of the disease. The conflict that erupted in South Sudan little more than a year ago has left people more vulnerable to a deadly tropical disease known as kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis). The risk of infection increases as people are displaced by fighting into areas where the disease is prevalent and malnutrition lowers their ability to fight the infection. With many health facilities not functioning in conflict areas, getting treatment is more difficult. Last year, MSF treated over 6,700 cases of kala azar in South Sudan, more than double the number of cases it treated the year before (2714 cases treated in 2013). The majority of people treated were in Lankien, a dusty settlement in the conflict affected state of Jonglei. Kala azar is a tropical, parasitic disease transmitted through bites from certain types of sand fly. It is endemic in 76 countries, and of the estimated 250,000–300,000 annual cases, 90 per cent occur in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, South Sudan, Sudan and Brazil. Kala azar is characterised by fever, weight loss, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anaemia and immune-system deficiencies. Without treatment in a place like South Sudan, kala azar is always fatal. Photo/Karel Prinsloo for MSF
Neglected diseases

No more neglected diseases, no more neglected patients

As we release a new report on neglected tropical diseases, International President Dr Christos Christou urges countries not to reverse the gains made on eliminating them. Press Release - 27 Jan 2021
 
Following post-election violence, about 8,000 persons have their homes and took shelter in makeshift camps in Bouar, Central African Republic, on January 2021.
Central African Republic

Displaced people in Bouar living amid fear and growing needs

People in Bouar, in western Central African Republic (CAR), have been living in fear since an uptick in violence, forcing many to become displaced to areas that lack sanitation and access to healthcare. Project Update - 26 Jan 2021
Four mothers posing in a corridor of the Hospital in Bili. All four of them are staying in the hospital with their child, that's suffering from a severe case of malaria. Since the beginning of the project in 2016, the pediatric ward already treated more than 4.000 cases of complicated/severe form of malaria.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Independent medical humanitarian assistance

We provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Our teams are made up of tens of thousands of health professionals, logistic and administrative staff - most of them hired locally. Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of independence and impartiality. We are a non-profit, self-governed, member-based organisation.

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