Malaria

MSF has launched an emergency response to combat an outbreak of malaria in South Kivu Province.

Thousands  are at risk of death in Pibor County as the rainy and malaria season approaches.

Three months after a coup in CAR, and with malaria season approaching, MSF continues to scale up activities to assist thousands with no access to basic health care.

In Niger, the deadly combination of malaria and malnutrition has created a vicious cycle that has a huge impact on some of the country's most vulnerable people.

Increasing numbers of children are being treated for malaria and malnutrition in southern Niger compared to one year ago.

An upsurge in malaria is likely to have serious consequences for people in Orientale province in DRC unless immediate action is taken.

Despite appearances of relative calm in Mali, the emergency is not over in the country’s northern reaches.

MSF's Dr. Jose Bafoa explains how MSF is still trying to deliver care to as many people as possible in conflict-torn areas of Mali, particularly those who need malaria treatment.

Three weeks after military operations began in northern Mali, MSF continues to provide lifesaving treatment in the areas of Mopti, Gao, Ansango, Konna, Douentza, and Timbuktu.

A network of volunteer community health agents set up by MSF is helping tackle malaria in remote areas of Guinea.

As the government of CAR attempts to implement a peace deal with rebel groups, MSF is expanding its emergency response for people affected by the conflict.

MSF has sent new teams to aid populations in CAR affected by ongoing conflict in the country.

A rebel surge in various parts of CAR has displaced numerous families who have fled conflict repeatedly over the past decade.

MSF teams in Rakhine State are unable to provide care to many people in need due to ongoing ethnic tensions and threats against MSF staff.

Doctors Without Borders is responding to the reappearance of malaria in Greece after a 40-year hiatus.

In this article, originally published on the Huffington Post, MSF pediatrician Susan Shepherd discusses the reduction of childhood mortality in Niger and strategies to reduce it worldwide.

Dr. Estrella Lasry reflects on a new strategy for treating malaria, a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.

A large-scale malaria prevention program appears to be drastically reducing the number of new cases of the disease among young children during peak transmission season.

The board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria approved a new funding model, which avoided imposing caps for countries applying for funding. In November, the board will decide on further details pertaining to the new model. 

MSF is treating an influx of patients for malnutrition and malaria in Niger's Maradi region.

Four weeks after heavy fighting in the town forced the organization to stop working, MSF has resumed its medical activities in Walikale.

MSF is combatting a malaria outbreak in the remote Ganga-Dingila health region.

MSF's emergency project in Kinkondja treated almost 40,000 men, women, and children for malaria, but further measures are still needed.

According to a new MSF survey, an alarmingly high number of children under the age of five are dying in parts of Central African Republic.

On World Malaria Day, MSF presents in infographic illustrating the astonishing rise in malaria cases in DRC and the urgent need for a greater response. 

A massive increase in malaria cases in DRC is overwhelming existing treatment capacity, demanding a comprehensive and stepped-up response 

Read accounts from patients and MSF staff in DRC, where MSF is working to treat malaria.

Despite some progress in the fight against malaria, rising rates in some countries and reports of drug-resistant strains from others continue to cause great concern.

MSF calls on the stakeholders of the Global Fund to convene an emergency donor conference and to open a new early funding window to ensure that the Fund is fully functional in 2012.

MSF has handed over the management of a hospital in Maitikoulou, Central African Republic, to the Ministry of Health 

As the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria marks its tenth anniversary, people living with HIV/AIDS and those delivering treatment took to the streets in response to drastic funding shortfalls.

People living in tribal villages in central India are caught up in the conflict between Maoist rebels and government forces. Dr. Rebecca Cuthbert describes how MSF takes the clinics to them.

MSF has released a list of important stories that had an impact on people’s ability to access needed drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines in developing countries in 2011.

Through its Access Campaign, MSF has been closely following the developments in the world of access to medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics.

Follow Dr. Frédérique Eygonnet through one day at MSF's Paoua hospital, the only hospital serving the approximately 120,000 residents of this subprefecture in the Central African Republic.

"The system seems to have broken down completely. It is hugely dysfunctional at every level."

The cancelation of Round 11 of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria undermines the significant progress that has been made in the uphill battles against these deadly diseases.

MSF International President Dr. Unni Karunakara discusses the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria's decision not to accept grant applications this year to support treatment programs due to a catastrophic drop in donor funding. 

Decades of conflict and a lack of government investment have made it difficult for people in DRC to access even the most basic health care. 

The financial transaction tax due to be discussed at this week's G20 Summit could help save millions of lives if a portion of it were put toward global health.

The financial transaction tax proposed by France and Germany could help save millions of lives if a percentage were allocated to global health, MSF said today.

The team is concentrating on tackling malaria in this region where the disease is rampant year-round. 

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.

Though it appears the worst of the fighting has passed, the consequences are still being felt in western Ivory Coast.

Fighting in Duékoué caused hundreds of deaths and widespread destruction. Many civilians sought refuge in a crowded camp and now they fear returning home.

A drug proven to reduce deaths in children suffering from severe malaria must be immediately rolled out in African countries.

Severe malaria has traditionally been treated with quinine. Today, the latest scientific evidence clearly shows that many more children’s lives can be saved by switching treatment from quinine to a more effective drug, artesunate.

“I met people whose villages had been burnt to the ground by one military group or another. They had run into the bush and were living with trees over the top of them and no mosquito nets”

Through its Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, MSF has been closely following the developments in the world of access to medicines, vaccines and diagnostics.

MSF is providing free medical care in the Lagos slums, where people struggle to make a living in overcrowded conditions and few can afford to see a doctor.

Malaria is particularly dangerous for malnourished children, and the cases of malaria are flaring right now during Niger's rainy season; MSF has treated nearly 130,000 children already.

Doctors and nurses treat over 750 children every month at a hospital in Gondoma, Sierra Leone.

Following a sharp increase in malaria cases in Mumbai, MSF has launched a malaria intervention to help local health authorities fight the disease.

Malaria infects 300 million people every year and kills up to one million people.

by Dr. Martin De Smet, Head of MSF's Working Group on Malaria

MSF health promoter Madinata Maiga arms people in southern Mali with the knowledge to fight malaria

Burundi has been grappling with a serious increase of malaria patients since the start of the year.

MSF’s diagnosis was that incidence of the disease is indeed higher, which prompted the organization to reinforce its response in the area.

Flood water in the Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh is receding, yet millions are still left homeless. Concerns are growing about the needs for shelter, food, and protection against diseases such as malaria.

Since August 5, MSF teams have been distributing thousands of mosquito nets to the population of Matam, a district in the capital Conakry, where the organization is running a nutritional and primary health care program.

Geneva/New York – April 8, 2009 – A global malaria drug subsidy to be launched this month is failing to look at medical needs and is jeopardizing the future of the most effective malaria treatments that exist today, says international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

In a new report launched today, MSF said many more lives can be saved if newer effective strategies to tackle malaria are more widely implemented. The report, titled "Full Prescription; better malaria treatment for more people, MSF’s experience,"describes the organization’s work in Sierra Leone, Chad and Mali, and shows that unnecessary deaths can be avoided with simple, affordable treatment and diagnostic tools available today.

Johannesburg/Brussels, September 30, 2008 —In a new report launched today, the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said many more lives can be saved if newer effective strategies to tackle malaria are more widely implemented. The report, titled "Full Prescription; better malaria treatment for more people, MSF’s experience,"describes the organization’s work in Sierra Leone, Chad and Mali, and shows that unnecessary deaths can be avoided with simple, affordable treatment and diagnostic tools available today.

The south of Mali, a marshy region crossed from west to east by the river Niger, is a breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry malaria. The disease is omnipresent here, and children, the group most vulnerable to the parasite, are its main victims. Every child under five suffers from malaria at least once a year, and some catch it a second or even a third time over the course of a year. The medical needs associated with malaria are huge, but the health system does not respond proportionately.

Rio de Janeiro, April 17, 2008 – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes the launch in Brazil of a new drug against P. Falciparum, the most dangerous type of malaria. Developed by DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) in partnership with Farmanguinhos/Fiocruz, ASMQ is the first drug against malaria that combines artesunate (AS) and mefloquine (MQ) in one fixed dose. ASMQ is an important additional tool for better treatment for a disease that continues to kill over one million people each year globally, and kills a child every 30 seconds.

Pediatrician Leo Ho worked in the intensive care unit of an MSF-run hospital in Bo, Sierra Leone, an area plagued by malaria. Here, he reflects on his assignment through images captured by photojournalist Francesco Zizola.

Paris/New York, March 1, 2007 — The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomes the introduction of a new user-friendly and cheaper 2-in-1 tablet of artesunate-amodiaquine against malaria. The treatment, also called ASAQ, is the result of research by the non-profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in cooperation with sanofi-aventis and it demonstrates how research and development can take place without patenting for availability in the public domain.

Geneva, April 21, 2006 – Alarmingly few African patients with malaria are getting existing effective treatment that could cure them in a few days, says Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Four years after the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global recommendation for countries to switch from old malaria treatments to artemisinin-based combination therapies, or ACTs, and two years after the Global Fund decided to fund ACTs, MSF teams are witnessing government-run health facilities still giving patients old malaria medicines instead of a treatment that works.

March 31, 2005, Geneva/New York — Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is gravely disappointed that donor governments, WHO, UNICEF, and the Global Fund, who are meeting this week at the Roll Back Malaria Partnership board meeting, are refusing to admit that the global malaria strategy has hit a brick wall.

On November 8th the World Health Organization communicated mis-information regarding reasons for current shortages of the malaria drug artemether-lumefantrine (sole supplier Novartis, under the trade name Coartem).

The World Health Organization has recommended artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) to replace the failing drugs in order to reduce mortality and delay further development of resistance. Yet, progress has been slow in getting these new medicines to patients.

Geneva, April 22, 2004 - Widespread use of a new fast-acting and potent treatment for malaria is finally on the horizon in Africa, where malaria is the number one killer of children. But the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warns that artemisinin-based combination therapy or ACT will only be accessible to all in need if immediate action is taken to finance scale-up of production of the drugs.

On the occasion of the second Board of Directors meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), scheduled to take place in New York City, April 23-24, 2002.