Crisis update on the war in Ukraine
March 5, 2022—As the war in Ukraine escalates, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is mobilizing to set up emergency response activities. We now have teams in Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia, Russia, and Belarus. We have had to halt normal activities in Ukraine and switch to emergency operations. Teams are preparing for a range of scenarios—including providing surgical care, emergency medicine, and mental health support for displaced people.
MSF is an independent and impartial organization committed to providing medical humanitarian assistance to people affected by the war no matter who they are or where they are.
Inside Ukraine, the coastal city of Mariupol is among the areas heavily affected by the war. Multiple MSF staff members are sheltering in the city with their families. One of our staff members provided a personal account of living under fire. MSF is calling for safe routes to allow civilians to flee from Mariupol, including MSF staff and their families.
Already, more than a million people have been forced to flee from Ukraine to neighboring countries. Our emergency teams along the Polish-Ukrainian border are seeing people crossing on foot, in cars, and on buses. Many are exhausted, scared, and suffering from dehydration or hypothermia.
What is happening in Ukraine?
Access to health care has been difficult for people living along the contact line of the conflict in eastern Ukraine since fighting intensified in the region in 2014. Prior to the escalation of war across Ukraine in February 2022, MSF ran a range of activities, including programs for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV care. We started new projects in Donetsk and Luhansk, while continuing to support the national COVID-19 response. Now we have had to halt normal activities and are shifting to emergency response operations.
How we're helping in Ukraine
Before the war escalated in February 2022, MSF teams in the Donetsk region were working with local volunteers, organizations, health care professionals, and authorities to help people travel to health care facilities, access prescribed medications, and to raise awareness about common health challenges.
Our teams have trained and supported family doctors and community nurses to offer basic mental health care to their patients. In Luhansk region, we ran a project focusing on HIV.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, we have worked to show that it is possible to successfully treat patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis through a combination of a short-course of newer medications, psychological counseling, and social support. Learn how you can help in Ukraine and other countries.
Improving access to basic health care
MSF has collaborated with the Ministry of Health to improve basic health care in the Donetsk region’s remote, conflict-affected communities. Our teams switched from running mobile clinics to working in general health care facilities, providing technical and practical assistance to staff. MSF provided training and support to doctors and nurses working at health care centers (ambulatories) and village health points (FAPs) close to the contact line. Please donate to support our work in Ukraine and other countries around the world now.
We have also strengthened community health care through the involvement of local volunteers. Village health team (VHT) volunteers are supported by MSF to transport fellow villagers to doctors’ appointments and hospitals, provide health information, and collect and deliver prescription medications from pharmacies linked to the government’s Affordable Drugs Program.
MSF also trained doctors and nurses (through the World Health Organization's mhGAP program) so that they can provide mental health care—something that is crucial for conflict-affected people but was not previously available at the primary health care level.
In the Luhansk region, we started supporting the regional HIV program to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with advanced HIV disease, focusing on putting patients at the center of care provided in health facilities and in the community. MSF has also donated drugs for the treatment of opportunistic infections, vaccines and medical supplies, as well as laboratory equipment. In 2022, MSF introduced active case-finding activities, focusing on the most at-risk groups: young people engaged in unprotected sex, commercial sex workers, and people who inject drugs.
In Mykolaiv, we treated hepatitis C patients living with HIV, using a new direct-acting antiviral regimen. We handed over this project to the Mykolaiv Regional Center of Palliative Care and Integrated Services in May 2020.
Innovative treatment for drug-resistant TB (DR-TB)
In partnership with the regional TB dispensary in Zhytomyr, MSF has run an innovative treatment regimen for patients with drug-resistant TB (DR-TB). The treatment plan is shorter, lasting between nine months to a year, and uses highly effective oral drugs that cause fewer side effects than the older injectable ones. An operational research study, which started in 2019, is examining the effectiveness of this model of care. The model also includes outpatient consultations, psychological counseling, and social support.
Following widespread fires in Luhansk in October 2020, our teams donated hygiene kits for distribution in Syrotyne village, near Sievierodonetsk city.
Responding to COVID-19 in Ukraine
Since the beginning of the pandemic, MSF has supported Ukraine's Ministry of Health in responding to COVID-19 in Kyiv city, Donetsk and Zhytomyr regions. In Kyiv city, MSF trained staff in nursing homes on infection prevention and control (IPC), and provided psychological support for residents of these facilities. We were planning to support health authorities in increasing access to rapid diagnostic tests by integrating testing into mobile clinics and donating rapid testing kits to primary health facilities.
In Mariinka raion, Donetsk region, two MSF mobile teams provided screening and home-based care for people with mild COVID-19 symptoms. The teams assessed hospitalization needs based on the severity of symptoms and conducted follow-up visits for patients who need further medical supervision. To improve hospital care, MSF installed 22 oxygen points and provided technical support to reinforce triage and patient screening, and refresher training on case management and IPC in Krasnohorivka.
In Zhytomyr region, MSF strengthened our outpatient care activities to ensure continuity of care for people living with DR-TB. MSF teams ensured access to medicines and psychosocial support for patients with TB during the declared lockdown. MSF conducted training on infection prevention and control (IPC) for health care workers to improve infection control in the hospitals, including sessions on managing psychological stress due to the additional risks and workload.
In both Donetsk and Zhytomyr, MSF has provided psychological support through telephone hotlines for patients, relatives, and health care workers.
