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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.

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Featured Cholera Gaza Israel war Mediterranean migration

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
Ebola disease in DRC: find out how we're responding
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7998 Results
 
On 8 July, an incident involving the bodyguards of the First Vice President Dr Riek Machar and the President Salva Kiir’s armed forces resulted in a firefight between government and opposition forces in Juba. Leading to days of clashes and violence which spread throughout areas of the country. These are mobile phone pictures of an MSF clinic following the lootings in July.
South Sudan

Access to essential healthcare dramatically reduced due to increased violence

Project Update - 25 Aug 2016
 
Fanne holds her 8-month old son Mallum Abba. He weighs 5,4 kg and is receiving treatment for malnutrition at MSF's inpatient therapeutic feeding centre in Ngala.
Nigeria

Video: Testimonies from displaced women in Maiduguri, Nigeria

Voices from the Field - 23 Aug 2016
 
Sondela community in Rustenburg Municipality is wedged between an functioning mine shaft, a refuse dump and hostels. A recent MSF survey showed that 1 in 4 women in this large mining town in the Platinum Belt of South Africa have experienced rape in their lifetime. MSF is providing medical and psycho-social counselling for rape survivors here.
South Africa

All rape survivors should have access to comprehensive medical and psychosocial care

Project Update - 19 Aug 2016
 
MSF nurse and emergency room supervisor Ahmed Qasim is checking on fatma who is suffering from a severe dehydration and was admitted in Abs hospital in 12th June, 2016.
Yemen

Indiscriminate bombings and unreliable reassurances from Saudi-led coalition force MSF to evacuate staff from six hospitals in the north

Press Release - 18 Aug 2016
 
Amina Story 7/7 Amina is 15 years old, she looks like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her small frame shrinks further in size as she talks about what she has experienced. Sleeping on the hospital bed besides her is her son Yaqub, who she gave birth to a few days ago in MSF‘s health facility in Maimusari, 15 kilometres from the centre of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, north east Nigeria. The MSF health centre in Maimusari is heaving with women and children, everwhere you look women are huddled holding their babies or seated on benches waiting to be seen by health workers. I say women, but many of the faces in the crowd are teenager girls similar in age to Amina. Some of these girls have given birth to their second or third child. More than five hundred women and babies are being treated in this MSF health facility daily and more than seventy babies are delivered every week. MSF runs an In Patient and Out Patient Department, maternity and ante natal services and an Ambulatory Theraputic Feeding Centre – ATFC. This is where malnourished children and babies are provided with threaputic treatment. Amina says she is her husbands second wife, he has five children from his first wife, Amina says she has no idea where he is and he has yet to meet their newborn son. Amina is from Bama, a town in north east Nigeria. Bama is one of the frontlines in the ongoing conflict between the Nigerian army and Boko Haram that has left more than one million displaced and facing a growing nutrition crisis. Amina was evacuated from Bama and refered to MSF‘s health facility in Maimusari. The journey by road takes two and a half hours, the road is in poor condition and dangerous because it is part dotted with military checkpoints and is close to the Sambisa Forest in Gwozah, where Boko Haram are said to have a base. “I don‘t remember the journey from Bama to Maiduguri because I was in so much pain I had passed out. My youngest sister, Noor, aged five acompanied me on the journey. Was I scared ? I have spent my whole life being scared and so this was no different“ says Amina. “It is very hard to be a girl here. Many bad things happen to girls, unspeakable things happen and they start happening to little girls as young as ten“ Amina twists the fabric of her dress as she talks and looks away frequentky trying to avoid eye contact with the nurse in the room. “What can I tell you ? It is impossible for me to talk about these things. “ I ask her how she feels about being a mother? She shrugs her shoulders and then leans back and looks in to the distance. In the same room as Amina there are two women on each bed with their newborns. The older looking mothers handle their children with more experience and attachment, holding their babies close as they breastfeed them. In one bed there are twins nestling into the blankets they’re laid out on. Many of the new mothers have expresionless faces. They look utterly exhusted. Fatima, 35, has given birth to her sixth child, she says her baby was deliverd safely by MSF and she is thankful that she had somewhere to turn to in her time of need. “I felt safe here and knew that I would get good care and my baby would be healthy. I do not know what tomorrow will bring and all I can do is hope for the best for my child and all the children.“ MSF midwife Etsuko Nakamura is doing the rounds in the health centre. In the delivery room a woman has just given birth and has a retained placenta which can be life threatening as it can cause infection. Nurses masage her uterus to try and encourage the placenta to discharge. Another woman is in labour and the staff are preparing for her delivery. “Our women patients are mostly in poor general health and for most it is very difficult for them to get to see a doctor because they don’t have the money or their family members do not see it as a priority,“ says MSF midwife Etsuko. “We deliever up to fifteen babies daily, many of the women have had repeat pregnancies and deliveries in a short space of time – their bodies are weak and exhausted. As always with our work we see the dailly impact of conflict and poverty. We see how women and children’s lives are made harder by violence and instability. It is the women and children who are the most vulnerable and suffer the most,“ says Etsuko.
Nigeria

Amina, a 15-year-old mother in Maiduguri

“Our women patients are mostly in poor general health, and for most it is very difficult for them to get to see a doctor because they don’t have the money or their family members do not see it as a priority,” explains Etsuko Nakamura. Voices from the Field - 18 Aug 2016
Ebola and haemorrhagic fevers

Defective interfering genomes and Ebola virus persistence

MSF's Research Unit on Humanitarian Stakes and Practices (UREPH) is pleased to announce the publication of the article "Defective interfering genomes and Ebola virus persistence" by Philippe Calain, Laurent Roux & Daniel Kolakofsky, published in The Lancet (Vol. 388, No. 10045, pp. 659–660). Journal article - 18 Aug 2016
 
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) staff stock 17.000 icepacks in cooler containers. The icepacks are cooled at a temperature of minus 22. Before being stored in blue boxes with the vaccines. They are spread out in the sun till they reach a temperature of 0°C. As the vaccines have to be kept at the temperature between +2 and +8°C.
Democratic Republic of Congo

MSF mobilises hundreds of workers for massive yellow fever vaccination campaign in Kinshasa

MSF is mobilising considerable resources to support the Congolese authorities in their wide-scale campaign against yellow fever, where 10.5 million people will be vaccinated in the next ten days. Project Update - 16 Aug 2016
 
Abs hospital, in Hajjah governorate, northwestern Yemen, was hit by an airstrike in the afternoon of August 15 at 3.45pm local time, killing at least 14 people and injuring at least 19. The blast immediately killed nine people, including an MSF staff member. Two patients died while being transferred to Al Jamhouri hospital. Five patients remain hospitalised. Abs hospital, supported by MSF since July 2015, was partially destroyed. All remaining patients and staff have been evacuated. The location of the hospital was well known, and the hospital’s GPS coordinates were repeatedly shared with all parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition.
Yemen

Death toll rises to 19 in airstrike on MSF-supported Abs hospital in Hajjah

On 15 August, Abs hospital, in Hajjah governorate, northwestern Yemen, was hit by an airstrike at at 3.45pm local time. The death toll from the airstrike on the MSF-supported hospital now stands at 19. Project Update - 16 Aug 2016
 
Muenge Kifeta sits with her 1 month old daughter who is checked up by MSF doctor Alexander Akili in the maternity ward at the government hospital in the village of Shamwana, Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo on September 21, 2013. The baby has a serious neo-natal infection but will recover after ongoing observation at the hospital. She traveled 35km from a nearby village in an MSF mobile unit.
Democratic Republic of Congo

After ten years, Shamwana project is closed

Press Release - 16 Aug 2016
 
Abs hospital, in Hajjah governorate, northwestern Yemen, was hit by an airstrike in the afternoon of August 15 at 3.45pm local time, killing at least 14 people and injuring at least 19. The blast immediately killed nine people, including an MSF staff member. Two patients died while being transferred to Al Jamhouri hospital. Five patients remain hospitalised. Abs hospital, supported by MSF since July 2015, was partially destroyed. All remaining patients and staff have been evacuated. The location of the hospital was well known, and the hospital’s GPS coordinates were repeatedly shared with all parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition.
Yemen

Eleven people dead and at least 19 injured after airstrike hits Abs hospital in Hajjah

Statement - 15 Aug 2016
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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