Meanwhile, the situation has not improved for the nearly 800,000 Rohingya who fled into Bangladesh from Myanmar in 2017. We continue to run a range of medical services for Rohingya refugees, who still live in overcrowded camps and face increasing hostility from the government and local communities. In addition, global funding cuts to aid – upon which they rely to survive – have reduced the amount of food distributed and driven up demand for our services.
Challenges and triumphs in treating diseases
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed a rise in disease outbreaks, in part due to the severe toll it took on health systems and routine vaccination campaigns. In 2023, we treated thousands of patients for vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, cholera and hepatitis. Our teams struggled to respond to an outbreak of diphtheria, a potentially deadly bacterial infection, which affected Guinea, Nigeria, Niger, and Chad, because of a global shortage of both vaccines and antitoxins used for treatment.
During the year, we responded to an alarming number of people with malnutrition. MSF teams responded to crises in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Angola, Yemen, DRC, Afghanistan and Burkina Faso. People become malnourished for a variety of reasons; conflict cutting off supplies or preventing farming, poor harvests, high food prices, or insufficient food assistance for displaced people.
Fonte original msf.org
