Since late 2019, Lebanon has been grappling with its worst economic crisis in decades, along with significant social unrest and political turmoil. In addition to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic at the start of 2020, a major explosion tore through the capital, Beirut, in August, causing widespread devastation.

The country is already hosting the largest number of refugees per capita in the world. The overlapping crises in Lebanon have exacerbated people’s vulnerability and pushed thousands into poverty. 

On Sunday January 3, the coalition of non-state armed groups attacked and took control of Bangassou, a town in the southeast of the Central African Republic on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams transported and urgently treated some of the wounded at the Bangassou Regional University Hospital (HRUB), a health structure that we have supported since 2014.

While the COVID-19 pandemic dominated headlines in 2020, there was no end to other diseases, emergencies and crises affecting people globally.  
  
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) continued to work alongside health authorities and communities in more than 70 countries. 
  
From assisting Syrians displaced by conflict to continuing essential sexual and reproductive health services for women and girls, these are ten of our biggest responses outside of COVID-19 in 2020. 

The conflict in Yemen, rooted in a failed political transition, has been simmering since 2011. Renewed conflict on the frontlines of Yemen’s Red Sea Coast has become some of the most intense in the country, increasing the number of civilians needing major war-trauma surgery.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) / Doctors Without Borders calls for an end to the indiscriminate and unacceptable attacks on civilians in Yemen.

As winter approaches in northwest Syria, the already harsh living conditions of more than two million displaced people are becoming even more difficult to manage. People living in camps across the region face the prospect of leaking tents, mud-filled streets and freezing temperatures.  

With the worrying terms of COVID-19 vaccine deals coming to light, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling on governments to urgently demand transparency from pharmaceutical corporations on all licensing agreements, clinical trial costs, and data. 

MSF is also calling for suspension of monopolies on intellectual property and private deals on any COVID-19 vaccines or treatments. Funded by billions of dollars of taxpayer money globally, it is essential that these vaccines be available for those who need them at affordable costs. 

More than two million people, displaced from their homes due to violence, are now living in overcrowded camps in Idlib governorate. For those living in these camps, the risk of COVID-19 transmission is high and self-isolation is difficult, if not impossible. Regular handwashing is also a challenge, as many people rely on water collected from shared tanks.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was still grappling with the country’s largest Ebola outbreak when a new 11th outbreak took hold in June. But the current outbreak, located in the country’s west, looks quite different from its record-setting predecessor: the virus appears to be spreading more slowly, producing small clusters in isolated areas, and has a lower mortality rate. 

But why is this outbreak so different from the country’s previous experiences? How has the medical response evolved, and how can we take advantage of the experience gained through previous outbreaks? 

In Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) projects responding to the COVID-19 outbreak in Mexico and India, mental healthcare has formed an important part of our treatment for patients—and has been critical for people’s recovery from the disease.

Severe flooding is affecting an estimated 1.3 million people across South Sudan and Ethiopia, inundating homes and leaving many without adequate food, water or shelter. Heavy summer rains have seen many areas flooded since July, with river levels continuing to rise.