Médecins Sans Frontières works to fill gaps in healthcare in Myanmar, where ongoing conflict has disrupted public services and driven over 1.2 million people from their homes.
MSF teams care for HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C patients, provide basic healthcare and reproductive and sexual healthcare services, and to respond to medical emergencies.
We pioneered HIV treatment in Myanmar – at one point becoming the largest provider of antiretrovirals in the country – and steadily grew a large patient cohort. In 2015, we began working with the Ministry of Health to transfer patients to the decentralised National AIDS Programme, so people can receive care closer to home. This has been suspended since the military seized power, and we are now seeing those patients return to us in greater numbers at our clinics in Shan, Kachin and Tanintharyi.
Despite restrictions on humanitarian access to conflict-affected areas, we have mobile teams based in Sittwe and Maungdaw in Rakhine state, who offer basic healthcare. They also arrange emergency referrals for patients from all communities, including those forcibly detained in camps.
The military’s seizure of power in Myanmar in February 2021 left the public healhcare system in disarray, threatening millions of people’s ability to access healthcare.
