Photo by Peter Casaer

“Today I saw the worst case of breast cancer I have ever seen”

“Sometimes, the seeming futility of this job overwhelms me. We see so many diseases – both chronic and acute – that we are unable to do anything about. When I considered coming to Afghanistan, I felt I was prepared to see malnutrition, wounded patients, trauma, etc. I did not realize the amount of chronic diseases and other conditions that we would be helpless to treat. At home, this woman would have had a mammogram and ultrasound when she first noticed a lump in her breast. She would have received free health care that would have, in all likelihood, saved her life. We have no chemotherapy, radiation therapy, mammography, or indeed oncologists here in Helmand [Afghanistan].”

Read more at http://blogs.msf.org/afghanistan/2013/06/what-if/

“Our patients are an eclectic profile. Some are traditionally dressed and come from rural parts of Syria. These include the Bedouin people, who often have facial tattooing and traditional dress. Many women wear the burka. Some people are clothed in typical modern-day European/American attire of jeans and t-shirt. These people are generally from the cities such as Homs, Damascus and Aleppo. Despite their aesthetic differences, they have something in common. They have all lost everything they owned. They have all witnessed horrendous tragedy and acts of violence. They are all mourning the deaths of loved ones. And what is worse, they are living in fear about the fate of loved ones who are unaccounted for, left behind in Syria.” - MSF doctor Aoife Doran in Tripoli.

Read more: http://blogs.msf.org/aoifed/2013/05/swing-of-things/

Photo © Aurelie Lachant/MSF

Photo: Malian refugees fleeing conflict in Mali arrive at the border in Fassala, Mauritania. Mauritania 2012 © Lynsey Addario/VII

Desperate Conditions in Camps Causing Disease Among Malian Refugees

Conflict in northern Mali is still forcing large numbers of people to flee their homeland and seek sanctuary elsewhere in the countries of the Sahel region, but the conditions in the camps where they are living are themselves leading to disease and suffering.

According to UNHCR, approximately 150,000 Malian refugees are living in camps in Burkina Faso (Ferrerio, Dibissi, Ngatourou-niénié, and Gandafabou camps), Mauritania (Mbera camp), and Niger (Abala, Mangaize, and Ayorou camps). Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been working in these eight camps since March 2012, providing primary and maternal health care and treating malnutrition. MSF is also vaccinating children between six months and fifteen years old for measles. Nearly 12,000 consultations and 5,000 vaccinations have been carried out since the beginning of the year.

Nearly 67,000 refugees—mainly women and children—have arrived in the border town of Fassala, Mauritania, since January 2012. “At the border crossing at Fassala, Mauritania, people are arriving thirsty and showing signs of fatigue,” explains Karl Nawezi, MSF project manager in Mauritania. After being registered by the authorities, refugees wait in a transit camp before being transferred to Mbera, a small, isolated village in the Mauritanian desert, just 30 kilometers [about 19 miles] from the Mali border.

Photo: Bruno weighing babies at the Malhangalene Health Centre. Maputo, Mozambique 2012. © Andre Francois

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Vaccines: The Price of Protecting a Child from Killer Diseases

“Adding new vaccines to the national immunization program is like taking out multiple mortgages.”—Ministry of Health Official, Kenya

Each year, the lives of two and a half million children are saved because they are protected against killer diseases through vaccination. Vaccinating with new vaccines should save many more lives, but high prices could prevent this from happening.

Photo: Children wait to receive measles vaccinations. DRC 2008 © Anna Surinyach

Vaccines: Ensuring Sustainable Supplies

Over the last few years, new vaccines to fight an increased range of childhood diseases have come to market. These new products come at a time when there is a renewed focus and international commitment to ensure that children in developing countries are also able to benefit from full protection against childhood killer diseases.

But current vaccine supply and procurement practices are limiting countries’ ability to get the vaccines they want and need for their children. This is leading to vaccine shortages both at national and international level that could hamper global efforts to extend immunization to as many children as possible in developing countries.

The GAVI Alliance, a private-public partnership*, finances the introduction of new and underused vaccines in some of the world’s poorest countries. Read more about GAVI and access to vaccines.

Photo: Two-year-old Fadilla before and after receiving treatment for severe malnutrition and tuberculosis. 

When Fadilla’s grandmother brought her to the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Am Timan, Chad, she wasn’t just malnourished – she was sick and in danger of dying.

At just 13 pounds, Fadilla weighed only about half of what a two-year-old child should. At the hospital, our teams diagnosed her with severe acute malnutrition and tuberculosis – two life-threatening medical conditions.

Malnutrition is a serious medical condition, and recovery only gets more difficult when illnesses like malaria or tuberculosis are also present. But with quality medical treatment, even children as sick as Fadilla can make a full recovery. It’s possible thanks to innovations like 33-cent packets of milk-based ready-to-use therapeutic food that are so simple to administer – most malnourished children can be treated by their parents or caregivers at home.

Fadilla’s tuberculosis meant she had to stay in the hospital, but after months of intensive treatment, the brightness returned to Fadilla’s eyes and she reached her target weight. “Look at Fadilla now!” her grandmother exclaimed to the hospital staff. “She is doing so much better!”

Thanks to the support of our donors, we treated 408,000 malnourished children last year. Our medical teams are able to travel to some of the most remote, dangerous, and neglected parts of the world to identify and treat children, like Fadilla, suffering from malnutrition.

There’s hope for even the most severely malnourished child. If we can reach them in time, treatments like therapeutic foods can help children who might not otherwise survive.

Donate to help Doctors Without Borders save the lives of malnourished children and bring quality medical care to people in nearly 70 countries around the world.

DNDi and New Drugs for Neglected Diseases

Founded in 2003, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) brings together the academic, medical, public health, and pharmaceutical worlds to create effective drugs to treat neglected diseases like Chagas disease, sleeping sickness, and visceral leishmaniasis. DNDi has developed an innovative not-for-profit model for drug research and development that is patient-centered and based on needs rather than profits.

in 2003 MSF brought together five prominent public sector research institutes—Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the Indian Council for Medical Research, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the Ministry of Health of Malaysia, and France’s Pasteur Institute—and the UNDP/World Bank/World Health Organization’s Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases to create DNDi.

In just seven years, under the leadership of former General Director of MSF in France, Dr. Bernard Pecoul, DNDi has introduced six new treatments: two treatments for drug-resistant malaria that have already reached 150 million people; the first new treatment in 25 years for the advanced stage of sleeping sickness; for visceral leishmaniasis, a new combination therapy for patients in Africa and a set of combination therapies for patients in South Asia; and a new child-adapted Chagas disease drug formulation.

Photo: Screening for Chagas in Colombia.
Colombia 2010 © Mads Nissen

For First Time in Africa, MSF Responds to Cholera Outbreak in Guinea With Mass Vaccination Campaign

After a cholera epidemic broke out in Guinea, MSF began a mass vaccination campaign, the first time the organization has done so in Africa. At present, teams are vaccinating more than 150,000 people in the Boffa region, near the capital of Conakry, using an oral vaccine designed to protect those who take it from contracting the disease. The first two phases of this campaign began on April 18.

“The epidemic in Guinea was declared in February and Boffa Prefecture is currently where we are seeing the largest active outbreak,” said Charles Gaudry, head of mission for MSF in Guinea. “Since the beginning of the epidemic, 152 cases of cholera and six deaths have been reported. We aim to vaccinate around 155,000 people.”

Photo: Guinea 2012 © MSF
MSF staff delivering the cholera vaccine in Boffa Prefecture