The dual DR-TB and HIV epidemics in the Ukrainian penitentiary system are an urgent public health problem. Overcrowded prison environments and the inadequate healthcare provided to inmates exacerbate the spread of DR-TB. Since 2012, MSF has provided DR-TB treatment to prisoners and ex-prisoners in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Antiretroviral (ARV) therapy is given to DR-TB patients co-infected with HIV. MSF also provides laboratory services for rapid, accurate TB diagnosis, adverse effects diagnosis and management, and guarantees an uninterrupted quality-assured drugs supply is available. 

 

The conflict in Syria has decimated the well-functioning healthcare system. With regions of the country inaccessible to humanitarian organisations, the huge medical needs that are indirect consequences of the conflict remain largely unreported and unseen. In 2013, MSF made what difference it could in delivering surgical projects, general clinics, maternity care, mental health care and vaccinations in Idlib, Aleppo, Ar-Raqqah and Al Hasakah governorates in the north. An average of three tons of medical and non-medical materials were donated daily to a network of 40 hospitals and 60 health posts across seven governorates. But restrictions on access and concerns about security are major obstacles to delivering medical-humanitarian assistance in Syria. 

 

By the end of the year it was estimated that more than four million Syrians were displaced inside the country, and two million had crossed into neighbouring countries. MSF also provided emergency medical aid to Syrians in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey.

 

More than three years after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the few public medical facilities in the country do not have the resources to meet the needs of most Haitians. Emergency services are particularly lacking. In the capital, Port-au-Prince, MSF’s 130-bed hospital, which provides free 24-hour obstetric care for pregnant women with complications, assisted 5,450 births in 2013. MSF also provides trauma care in the Drouillard hospital, and basic and specialist services in a container hospital in Léogâne.

 

One of the sharper threats comes from cholera. MSF runs treatment centres in two locations in Port-au-Prince, treating 9,913 cholera patients. The teams also implements preventive measures including distribution of hygiene kits, water chlorination points and educational activities.