Homepage featured

Resistance to antibiotics is a growing public health crisis, especially in countries with fragile health systems and in regions at war. One key limitation in most of these settings is a lack of clinical bacteriology laboratory capacity, which leaves medical providers without ways to accurately diagnose patient infections and to tailor antibiotic treatment accordingly. To help fill this critical gap, MSF and partners have developed the Mini-Lab—a small-scale, standalone lab that is easy to transport, set up and operate by staff after only a short training. Its six modules are stocked with everything needed to diagnose common bloodstream and urinary tract infections and to perform antibiotic sensitivity testing using methods adapted to extremely hot climates and remote settings. With Mini-Lab now being rolled out to selected MSF projects, here we highlight the background to its development and some of the research behind the bacteriological tests it incorporates.

Each year hundreds of thousands of people die from a neglected tropical disease, while many more suffer serious illness or lifelong disability. Yet as we mark World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Day on 30th January, global progress towards eliminating these diseases is threatened by shifting global health priorities and declining investment in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The content collection linked below offers a snapshot of MSF’s work on managing some of the most deadly NTDs, finding better tools and models of care for highly affected populations, and advocating for greater access to care and increased global funding. Several authors describe our programs and lessons learned from a decade of treating snakebite victims in sub-Saharan Africa. Two studies evaluate shorter, less toxic treatment for visceral leischmaniasis, while a policy analysis proposes critical steps towards eliminating this horrific disease in East Africa. Last, reports from Sokoto, Nigeria describe the collaborative development of a comprehensive model of care for noma.

On 3-4 May in Nairobi, Kenya, MSF gathered staff from our projects with experts from academia, clinical practice and the non-governmental sector to consider key issues in humanitarian paediatrics. These included: Vaccination and vaccine-preventable diseases: Amid post-Covid-19 global setbacks in child vaccination coverage, sessions spotlighted recent increases in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks, potential new vaccination strategies and emergency responses, and MSF’s role in vaccine advocacy and catch-up campaigns. Nutrition: Talks covered the nexus of nutrition with other key conference topics, the latest malnutrition guidance and tools, and MSF’s priorities in nutritional care. Paediatric HIV: With half of all HIV-positive children globally not receiving antiretroviral therapy, presenters reviewed the latest paediatric testing/treatment recommendations and discussed barriers and potential solutions to implementation, nutritional challenges in children with HIV, and systems strengthening for preventing and monitoring paediatric HIV. Click below to read the abstracts. And stay tuned for more conference content, coming soon.

Burn injuries represent a challenge in the Gaza Strip, where access to rehabilitation services is constrained by ongoing conflict and limited healthcare resources. This study describe...

Science Portal

Collection Content

See more collections

Mini-Lab—MSF's simplified bacteriology laboratory for low-res...

Neglected tropical diseases

MSF Paediatric Days 2024 abstracts

Post-surgical scar management and rehabilitation in burn patients: Insights from Gaza’s challenging context - A retrospective descriptive study

First culture-confirmed melioidosis case in Mozambique: A wakeup call for better diagnostics and clinical awareness

Shotgun metagenomic analysis of the oral microbiomes of children with noma

The effects of armed conflict on children and adolescents: Policy statement