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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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8003 Results
 
Natasha Reyes Filipino MedCo Emergency Coordinator speaks English and Filipino
Philippines

Typhoon Haiyan: Interview with MSF emergency coordinator

"This sort of disaster is unprecedented in the Philippines" Voices from the Field - 11 Nov 2013
 
Medical and logistical supplies are being loaded at MSF Supply's warehouse in Brussels, Belgium. The trucks will travel tonight to Ostende airport, from where two cargo planes will take off tomorrow morning to support the relief effort in the Philippines. MSF is sending 329 tonnes of medical and relief items which will arrive in Cebu within the next few days in four cargo planes, which are leaving today and tomorrow – 2 from Dubai and 2 from Ostende. The humanitarian cargo includes medical kits for treating wounded, material for medical consultations, tetanus vaccines, water and sanitation equipment, and relief items such as tents and hygiene kits. An additional cargo is being prepared due to leave later this week from Bordeaux with an inflatable hospital and medical material.
Philippines

MSF sends two cargo planes of medical and relief items while first teams arrive in Cebu

Update on Typhoon Haiyan response. Project Update - 10 Nov 2013
 
Sizakela Nhlabatsi, 30, MDR-TB patient: ‘In March 2013 I became sick. I coughed a lot and felt pain in my chest. I went to the MSF clinic to be tested and I was diagnosed with MDR-TB. In the beginning the side effects of the medications were hard. My bones hurt, I could not walk, I had to vomit, had cramps. In the second month I wanted to give up treatment, but with the support of MSF I have succeeded to go on. Now I feel better, I can walk again and do not have to vomit anymore. ’ ‘Nobody was able to take care of me, I am the oldest of 4 children, my parents have died. I live about 5 km from the clinic and was too sick to come to the clinic for the treatment. That’s why MSF decided to put me in CANA house. I am worried about my brothers, they have to survive without me and they have no income.’ Swaziland, Cana House (MSF residence for patients on treatment) in Makanyane. October 2013.
Tuberculosis

Risk Factors Associated with Default from Multi- and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Treatment, Uzbekistan: A Retrospective Cohort Analysis

Improved support should be provided to TB patients, especially those at risk of stopping treatment. Journal article - 6 Nov 2013
 
Nurse Abdi Somad Ahmed Moktar (38) places an IV with a malnourished child.
Somalia

A timeline of MSF in Somalia

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) first worked in Somalia in 1979 and was present in the country with few interruptions between 1991 and 2013. Project Update - 4 Nov 2013
 
Aphe, care taker of Abino (pseudonym), 20 years old, MDR-TB patient gives her anti-TB medicines. Abino says, “I live in a big family of 10 members. Yet no one cares for me or talks to me, except my sister in law, Aphe. When I could not get up, she brought me food and water. She gives me the medicines on time every day.” Since 2010, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has been comprehensively supporting the Civil Hospital in Mon – a remote area of India’s north easternmost state, Nagaland. Together with the local authorities, MSF started treating patients with drug-susceptible TB and drug-resistant-TB (DR-TB) in April 2012. Since then, around 255 sensitive TB patients have been put on treatment and eight DR-TB patients. People in this remote and mountainous region have severely limited access to health care, with very few health workers and almost no medical specialists. They must often travel for hours to reach the nearest hospital. For this reason, MSF has introduced the decentralized model of care in Mon. Medicines are given to these patients and their caretakers on a monthly basis, so that they can avoid the need to travel to clinic more often – an expense they can rarely afford.
Tuberculosis

DR-TB drugs under the microscope: Sources and prices for drug-resistant tuberculosis medicines - 3rd Edition

MSF and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease today released DR-TB Drugs Under the Microscope, a report on the prices, sources, access environment and R&D landscape for DR-TB medicines. Report - 30 Oct 2013
 
Bedaquiline pills are counted in a Kara-Suu district FGP (Family Group Practitioner) clinic. Kara-Suu district.
Tuberculosis

First new TB drug in 50 years risks being squandered without better research and pricing strategies

First new TB drug in 50 years risks being squandered without better research and pricing strategies. Press Release - 30 Oct 2013
 
Sudanese refugees began streaming across the border into South Sudan in June 2011 when conflict erupted between the Khartoum government and the rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in Sudan’s South Kordofan State. At the height of the crisis in Yida camp last summer, high mortality rates were reported among young children admitted to MSF’s hospital with respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia, one of the leading causes of death. MSF determined that vaccinating with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) could result in a substantial mortality reduction in Yida. MSF has been working since September 2012 to procure PCV but faced significant delays due to lengthy negotiations and international legal procurement constraints. MSF was eventually able to obtain the vaccine from GSK at a reduced price, but delays have now pushed the planned vaccination into the logistically challenging rainy season. The objective is to immunize approximately 5,000 children under the age of 2 against several pathogens, including haemophilus influenza type B and pneumococcus. This is the first time that PCV is being used in South Sudan and one of the first vaccines to be implemented in compliance with the new WHO emergency vaccination recommendations.
Access to medicines

Global alliance for vaccinations meets to examine progress, MSF points to needed policy changes

Key policy changes are urgently needed at GAVI Alliance to help reduce the number of children not benefitting from vaccination globally (22.6 million in 2012), MSF said ahead of meeting in Stockholm. Press Release - 28 Oct 2013
 
This IDP camp in Al Safira district (Aleppo province) is empty. After the October attack, IDPs had fled north . MSF had distributed some tents to IDPs. A medical student was running an OPD set up with MSF support
Syria

Civilians forced to flee Al Safira under heavy bombardment

More than 130,000 people have fled the district of Al Safira, in Aleppo province Press Release - 25 Oct 2013
 
Boost hospital, Lashkargah, Helmand province.<br/>
Attacks on medical care

Don't Shoot the Ambulance: Medicine in the Crossfire

As physicians and hospitals in war zones multiply, their facilities have increasingly become military targets. Journal article - 24 Oct 2013
 
Twenty percent of all the babies born in the world each year—the equivalent of nearly five times the children born yearly in the United States—are not getting the basic vaccines they need to be protected from killer diseases, such as measles.And that’s why Venetia Dearden traveled to West African nation of Mali with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to see firsthand the importance of vaccines to families and the lengths to which they must go to get them. When MSF teams stage vaccination campaigns in the West African nation of Mali, mothers will come from hours away, sometimes days away.In the first year of their life, children must receive vaccines five separate times. In certain parts of the world, it can be extremely difficult for children and their caregivers to come so often if they live far away from a vaccination point or can't afford the cost of transportation. As in many other countries, these women, who are overwhelmingly the stewards of their families when it comes to health issues, want the protection vaccines can provide them and their children against several potentially deadly diseases that plague the region.In the best-case scenario, MSF and other agencies would bring the vaccines to them, wherever they lived, in whatever conditions. But this isn’t possible at present, because many of the vaccines available today are not tailored for the difficult environments in which they must be used. To give but one example: establishing and sustaining cold chain is very difficult in places where electricity is hard to come by, to say nothing of ice. That’s why MSF has been advocating for a global approach to vaccine development and dissemination that takes into account the conditions in the countries where these vaccines are most needed to half preventable deaths, as well as the particular strains of diseases found in various locations.
Neglected diseases

The drug and vaccine landscape for neglected diseases (2000–11): a systematic assessment

This paper studies the research and development pipeline of drugs and vaccines for neglected diseases from 2000 to 2011. Journal article - 24 Oct 2013
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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