The climate crisis is also a health and humanitarian crisis, disproportionately impacting people in the world’s most climate-sensitive regions—mainly low- and low-middle income countries with the least capacity to respond. MSF and other humanitarian organizations witness the consequences daily. More frequent, intense weather events and a warming planet contribute to food and water scarcity, more severe and widespread disease outbreaks, and more injuries and preventable deaths. They also drive massive population displacement, with over 32 million people fleeing their homes in 2022 alone due to floods, drought, storms and fire—nearly triple the number displaced by violence and conflict. As global leaders convene in Dubai for the UN climate conference (COP28, 30 Nov-12 Dec 2023) we present this cross-section of work by MSF and collaborators, drawing from first-hand experience at our medical projects. Emphasizing the urgency of adapting humanitarian operations to the climate crisis, the collection also explores loss and damage through a health lens, proposes policies and practices for creating climate-resilient health organizations, and advocates for embedding fair, just ethics perspectives into humanitarian action and research on climate.

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.

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