Volatility in northeast Syria has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend most of our activities there and evacuate all international staff. Press Release - 14 Oct 2019

MSF health promoter Tonanzin Urrieta talkes with a Venezuelan child in a therapeutic workshop. In Jardim Floresta shelter, the MSF mental health team promotes specific activities for children, from age 3 to 6 years old. They talk about topics such as protection against abuse and situations of violence. They also address self-esteem issues, because some of the children are being bullied or have gone through this situation before.

Brazil

Taking care of the mental health of Venezuelan children in Brazil

Project Update - 11 Oct 2019

Over 18 Schools have been opened up so far in Hasakeh city to provide for the steady influx of IDPs fleeing the frontline conflict between Turkish and the Syrian Democratic Forces. Each school houses from 150 to 270 people but lack water and hygienic facilities. The Syrian Humanitarian Coordinating Office expect 30,000 refugees to come to the city in the next coming days and to be-housed in these schools. They are beginning to set up for at least a hundred schools. Most of these refugees have no documentation or identification cards due to the conflict that has been raging over the last eight years. Local humanitarian organizations have highlighted the dire need of water supply as a major need.

Syria

Northeast Syria: Turkish military operation results in displacement and hospital closure

Shelling by Turkish military has displaced many people from villages and towns along Syria's northeast border. A hospital has closed. Press Release - 11 Oct 2019

Belarus

TB patients improve treatment adherence with psychological and social support

TB patients in Belarus have been shown to adhere - or stick to - their treatment better when they receive specialised psychological and social support. Project Update - 10 Oct 2019

Portrait of Oleg in his living room which is also the bedroom he shares with his partner Alyona, whom he met while undergoing treatment for TB. "I was on treatment for TB, and I was not getting better. In July 2016 I was feeling worse. I would take a job but I wouldn’t be able to work for more than 2 hours. When people would give me a hand for a handshake I wouldn’t shake hands because it was painful as if my hand was breaking.
My condition was deteriorating. In August they did an x-ray and the spot (in the lung) was growing.
I was tired. I’d been through many things in my life – surgeries, an oncological condition, but I’d never experienced anything like it. I was told I should approach MSF, Doctors Without Borders, and that they could help. I approached them and they helped me. I felt sunshine inside me. So the decision had been approved to support my treatment. I’m very grateful to MSF because they offered me a helping hand.
In April 2017 I was transferred to outpatient treatment here, in the TB Dispensary 2. On new treatment, with the new drugs I felt more or less ok in a month. I had an appetite again. MSF staff would call me and visit me, we would talk, joke together and I felt better. All this support has a very good impact. So I was transferred here, I was taking these drugs, and I started gaining weight.
My mother was supporting me during the treatment. I was single then." Oleg says, in Minsk, Belarus, in August 2018.

Tuberculosis

TB drug delamanid must be more affordable and made available in more countries

Drug manufacturer Mylan will introduce a lower price for newer TB drug delamanid in South Africa - but it is still too expensive for those who need it and must be made available at a lower price in other countries Statement - 10 Oct 2019

Palestine

The invisible mental health crisis plaguing the West Bank

Much-needed mental health consultations are among the services Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) offers civilians in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank of Palestine since 1996. Project Update - 10 Oct 2019

MSF's Access Campaign and MSF-USA held a demonstration across form the J&J shareholders' meeting on April 25, 2019, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The message was for J7J to bring down the price of newer TB drug bedaquiline to $1 per day.

Access to medicines

MSF demands Johnson & Johnson reduce price of lifesaving TB drug

Despite benefiting from contributions, including tax payer funds, to develop tuberculosis drug bedaquiline, Johnson and Johnson are making huge profits - while people die. We demand that J&J halve the price of bedaquiline. Press Release - 10 Oct 2019

The laboratory at the Malabako General Hospital, where MSF helped refurbish the infrastructure. The hospital is suffering from a severe staff shortage

Democratic Republic of Congo

Ebola response overshadows already fragile health system

The Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo is draining medical staff and resources from the regular - and already fragile - health system. Project Update - 9 Oct 2019

A Yezidi woman aged 60 poses in her house in Sinuni on September 2nd, 2019.
« We are from Khanasor village but we’ve been living in Sinuni since March 2019, when we came back from the IDP camps. After the 2014 genocide, I started to have mental health problems. I feel nervous, scared, uncomfortable and angry. I have a constant headache. I have pain in my eyes because I cry a lot. I am always thinking about the memories from the genocide, those who died, those who emigrated. Some of my sons live abroad now, and it’s difficult to be apart ».
(Merged image: top view of the burned ground in a ghost town north of Mount Sinjar, on which dead flowers have fallen)
©Emilienne Malfatto

Mental health

The Yazidi - a community without hope

The genocide of the Yazidi people - a religious minority based in northern Iraq, near the border with Syria - by Islamic State group in 2014 traumatised the remaining community. Today MSF teams are providing medical care, but especially mental healthcare, to help people heal. msf.exposure.co - 9 Oct 2019

John * and Jean * hold each other’s arms in the CHK. Jean was diagnosed with HIV in 2010. He was hospitalized in June 2019 for the first time. A few weeks after his release, he had to return urgently for a new hospitalization.

HIV/AIDS

Burden sharing or burden shifting? How the HIV/TB response is being derailed

The report <i>Burden sharing or burden shifting? How the HIV/TB response is being derailed</i> examines the HIV and TB response in nine countries where MSF runs programmes. With a focus on the financial resources available, this report highlights the current risks and gaps in HIV and TB service delivery in these countries. Report - 7 Oct 2019

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.

Learn more

About Us

What we do

Where we work

MSF Websites

Northeast Syria: MSF forced to evacuate staff due to extreme volatility in the region