MSF Scientific Days International 2024

On 16 May people from within and outside MSF will gather in London, joined by online participants from over 100 countries, for this annual ‘conference without borders’ showcasing medical research from fragile and conflict affected settings.

All too often the populations MSF and others work with are excluded from the benefits of research. Yet they are the ones that often need these benefits most. So speakers will consider how MSF’s research has impacted the way our projects deliver care, how knowledge gaps can be pivotal to political gatekeeping and to triggering appropriate humanitarian responses, and how identifying best practices and funding innovation are key to improving our capacity to act.

Here you can view abstracts for all scientific presentations, which focus on infectious diseases, outbreaks, vaccination, and mortality.

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2024-05-25 • MSF Scientific Day International 2024

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World Hepatitis Day 2022

Each year hundreds of millions of people suffer from chronic or acute liver disease caused by hepatitis viruses, and over one million die. To mark World Hepatitis Day (July 28th) we bring you a selection of MSF research exploring how to better prevent, identify and treat hepatitis infection in lower-income countries and emergency contexts where the burden is heaviest. For example, in a South Sudanese camp for displaced people—a type of setting where poor sanitation and water quality regularly lead to hepatitis E outbreaks—MSF and the Ministry of Health (MoH) are conducting the world’s first reactive vaccination campaign against this disease, and evaluating the process and outcomes. In Cambodia, MSF and MoH collaborators found that a simplified community-based model of care for hepatitis C was safe and highly effective in diagnosing patients and in curing them with new antiviral drugs. It was also cost-effective, according to studies in several countries and patient populations. And these new drugs were safe and effective even in patients also being treated for drug-resistant tuberculosis.

World Hepatitis Day 2024

Viral hepatitis is a significant cause of disease and death globally. Yet powerful new medical tools to combat hepatitis C and E still reach only a tiny fraction of people who desperately need them, especially in low-resource and emergency settings.

To mark World Hepatitis Day (July 28th) we highlight recent MSF research on making these breakthrough products more widely accessible and simpler to use.

For hepatitis C, where groundbreaking antiviral drugs can cure nearly all patients, MSF is developing comprehensive, community-based models of care that offer rapid screening, diagnosis, and treatment under one roof. In some settings programs focus on the specific needs of highly vulnerable populations, such as people living in remote areas, forcibly displaced refugees, or those co-infected with HIV or TB or who inject drugs.

Turning to prevention, MSF is exploring ways to use the Hepatitis E vaccine more effectively in areas where poor sanitation and water quality regularly lead to outbreaks. Studies in a South Sudanese camp for internally displaced people are strengthening evidence for the vaccine’s feasibility, efficacy, safety and community acceptance, especially for pregnant women and their fetuses. Another report analyzes strategies for overcoming barriers to widespread vaccine adoption.

Diabetes care in humanitarian settings

Diabetes affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, a large majority of them living in low- and middle-income countries. Yet finding effective strategies, tools and policies for effectively managing this chronic illness—especially amid war, displacement or exclusion from care—is a neglected area of humanitarian medicine. Here we present a cross-section of work on this front by MSF and collaborators. Several studies assess the shift towards community-based, nurse-led models of care in rural settings. Others explore obstacles to diabetes care for war refugees living in camps in Jordan or Lebanon, highlighting how health programs can adapt to their needs. The demonstration that insulin retains potency for 30 days if cooled without refrigeration is opening doors to more patient self-management, as a case study in remote South Sudan shows. At the same time, MSF and others call for regulatory and financing policies that make diabetes medications and supplies cheaper, better adapted to humanitarian settings, and far more available to patients whose lives depend on them.

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