TB Union Conference 2022

As we mark World Refugee Day (20 June 2022), over 100 million people globally are forcibly displaced from their home—the highest number ever recorded, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The health impacts of this displacement are dire: millions of people exposed to violence, infectious disease, and exclusion from health care during often-treacherous journeys or in detention centers and refugee camps.

Here we bring you a selection of MSF research aimed at better understanding and meeting the medical needs of populations along their migration route. Some studies describe the physical and psychological wounds our teams witness among specific populations—from unaccompanied minors to people detained under inhumane conditions in Libya or rescued from drowning after risking everything in perilous Mediterranean Sea crossings. Others assess ways to improve models of care for refugees with chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes, or for tackling infectious diseases such as diphtheria and hepatitis E in overcrowded, unhygienic camps.

Every year 2 million or more people fall victim to snakebite envenoming, mostly in poor, rural communities of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Between 83,000—138,000 of them die, while hundreds of thousands more suffer debilitating long-term complications or disabilities.

Although some antivenom medicines are highly effective when used promptly and appropriately, many snakebite victims get no treatment at all. Those who do may receive antivenoms which don’t work against the type of snake that bit them, or were not rigorously tested for safety and effectiveness.

To mark World Snakebite Awareness Day on September 19th, the Collection linked below brings together recent MSF work on this highly neglected disease. Several articles and conference presentations help fill evidence gaps on the burden of disease and its impacts or on treatment outcomes with specific antivenoms in specific regions. Others examine how to tackle the formidable challenges of availability and affordability, the absence of regulatory oversight for making, testing and registering antivenoms, and the anemic R&D pipeline for new products—all of which impede access for patients to safe, effective treatment tailored to local snake species.

MSF Scientific Days Asia 2024 is a conference that presents research, innovation, and experiences from treatment and humanitarian programmes across Asia. MSF Scientific Days brings together researchers, practitioners, academics, and patient representatives with the aim to catalyse improvements in the quality of care provided to patients and populations at risk. This is a platform for experts in the humanitarian global health field to come together, collaborate, and discuss the current trends and challenges in innovation and healthcare.