© Médecins Sans Frontières
v2.1.4232.produswest2
© Médecins Sans Frontières
v2.1.4232.produswest2
Noma, also known as cancrum oris, is a rapidly progressing life-threatening infection that affects the mouth and face. Noma is preventable and easy to treat if addressed in the early reversible stages, but most often deadly if untreated. The disease most commonly affects children who are chronically malnourished or whose immune systems are otherwise compromised. Noma affects an estimated 140,000 children annually. Noma was added to the WHO's list of Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2023.
MSF is working to discover more about noma. This collection highlights MSF's mixed methods research on treatment outcomes, burden of disease, attitudes towards the disease and other aspects of noma.
Unsafe abortion is one of the main causes of maternal death, and the only one that is completely preventable. Yet over 30 million unsafe abortions occur each year, leading to at least 28,000 deaths and millions of serious complications—nearly all in low- and middle-income countries. MSF teams see these tragic consequences first-hand, treating thousands of patients every year with severe, potentially life-threatening effects from unsafe abortion.
To mark International Safe Abortion Awareness Day (28 September 2023) this Collection presents highlights of MSF’s work on providing SAC as a way to reduce maternal death and injury. By re-assessing and reshaping how our projects deliver SAC in fragile and conflict-affected settings, we have been able to significantly expand services not only in those contexts but across MSF projects globally. In parallel we also conducted in-depth studies of abortion-related dynamics in several complex settings, especially among women who experienced severe complications. Collectively these findings are helping to identify gaps in service delivery and inform operational decision-making. And in a shift accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are increasingly working towards and advocating for more community-led, self-managed SAC.
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 International 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.