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.
Since November 2023, the conflict between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army resumed. In June 2024. MSF was forced to indefinitely suspend our medical humanitarian activities in Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Rathedung townships in northern Rakhine state, after our office and medical store were burnt down. While MSF has been able to maintain a minimum level of activities in some townships in the central part of Rakhine, our teams in those areas also struggle with severe access restrictions, and the consequences of violent conflict.
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.
