World Malaria Day 2022

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.

Resistance to antibiotics is a growing public health crisis, especially in countries with fragile health systems and in regions at war. The World Health Organization has estimated that antibiotic-resistant bacteria caused nearly 1.3 million deaths in 2019, a toll that will increase significantly in the coming years if effective action is not taken. To mark World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2022 (18-24 November) we present a snapshot of MSF’s recent work on responding to this growing threat. Since many humanitarian settings lack laboratory capacity to diagnose these infections, MSF and partners have developed two new technologies with the potential to dramatically expand the availability of accurate diagnosis—allowing clinicians to then tailor antibiotic treatment accordingly. Other work from diverse contexts describes practices and challenges related to optimizing rational antibiotic use within health facilities and communities. Lastly, several studies characterize the patterns and prevalence of antibiotic resistance among MSF patients, from hospitalized neonates in Central African Republic to acute trauma patients in Haiti and Yemen.