MSF History & Principles
Medical Interventions
Crisis Response
Ethical Challenges
Global Health Advocacy
100
This is the country where Médecins Sans Frontières was founded in 1971.
What is France?
Explanation: MSF was founded in Paris, France, by a group of doctors and journalists who wanted to provide emergency medical aid without political or bureaucratic constraints.
100
MSF uses this peanut-based therapeutic food to treat malnutrition.
What is Plumpy’Nut?
Explanation: Plumpy’Nut is an energy-dense, ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) that has revolutionized the treatment of severe acute malnutrition, especially in children.
100
MSF provides medical aid in emergencies such as armed conflicts, disease outbreaks, and this type of environmental catastrophe.
What are natural disasters?
Explanation: Earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods often overwhelm local health systems, requiring MSF to step in with emergency medical aid.
100
MSF refuses most funding from this type of source to maintain independence and avoid political influence.
What are governments?
Explanation: Government funding can come with restrictions, so MSF relies on private donations to stay independent.
100
MSF’s Access Campaign fights for affordable access to these for people in low-income countries.
What are medicines and vaccines?
Explanation: MSF challenges patent laws that make essential medicines too expensive for the world’s poorest populations.
200
MSF was awarded this prestigious global prize in 1999 for its humanitarian efforts.
What is the Nobel Peace Prize?
Explanation: MSF received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its pioneering humanitarian work in providing medical aid to people affected by conflicts, disasters, and epidemics.
200
One of the most common vaccine-preventable diseases MSF tackles in children is this highly contagious viral illness.
What is measles?
Explanation: Measles is a leading cause of preventable child mortality. MSF conducts emergency vaccination campaigns to curb outbreaks, especially in refugee camps.
200
In response to the Syrian civil war, MSF established underground hospitals and clinics in this region heavily affected by conflict.
What is Aleppo?
Explanation: MSF operated makeshift hospitals in Aleppo, treating war injuries despite constant bombings and limited medical supplies.
200
One of MSF’s biggest challenges in war zones is ensuring that these facilities remain neutral and are not attacked.
What are hospitals?
Explanation: Despite international laws, MSF hospitals have been bombed in Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
200
This neglected tropical disease, transmitted by blackflies, is one of the illnesses MSF works to eliminate through mass drug administration.
What is river blindness (onchocerciasis)?
Explanation: MSF distributes the drug ivermectin to prevent blindness caused by parasitic infections.
300
These three core principles guide MSF’s work: impartiality, neutrality, and this.
What is independence?
Explanation: MSF maintains independence by refusing most government funding, allowing it to provide medical care based on need rather than political influence.
300
MSF is a key responder in outbreaks of this deadly viral hemorrhagic fever, most notably in West Africa in 2014-2016.
What is Ebola?
Explanation: MSF played a critical role in the response to the Ebola outbreak by setting up isolation units, providing treatment, and advocating for faster vaccine development.
300
MSF has provided aid in refugee camps for this ethnic minority group fleeing persecution in Myanmar.
Who are the Rohingya?
Explanation: MSF has treated thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh for malnutrition, infections, and psychological trauma.
300
MSF publicly criticized pharmaceutical companies for high prices and patent restrictions on this life-saving HIV/AIDS treatment.
What are antiretrovirals (ARVs)?
Explanation: ARVs dramatically reduce HIV mortality, but MSF has had to fight for affordable access in low-income countries.
300
During the COVID-19 pandemic, MSF advocated against vaccine nationalism and called for equitable distribution through this global initiative.
What is COVAX?
Explanation: COVAX aimed to ensure fair vaccine access worldwide, but wealthier countries hoarded doses
400
This French term, meaning "bearing witness," describes MSF’s approach to exposing crises.
What is "témoignage"?
Explanation: Témoignage refers to MSF’s commitment to speaking out about humanitarian crises when governments or other actors try to conceal suffering or obstruct aid.
400
This approach, which shifts certain healthcare responsibilities to trained non-physicians, helps MSF provide care in areas with severe doctor shortages.
What is task-shifting?
Explanation: Task-shifting allows nurses and community health workers to take on essential medical tasks, improving healthcare access in crisis settings.
400
MSF had to temporarily withdraw from Afghanistan in 2004 after five of its staff members were killed in this type of attack.
What is an ambush?
Explanation: After a deadly ambush, MSF suspended operations in Afghanistan for five years due to safety concerns.
400
In 2015, an MSF trauma hospital in this country was bombed by U.S. forces, killing 42 people.
What is Afghanistan?
Explanation: The Kunduz hospital attack raised concerns about the protection of medical facilities in war zones.
400
MSF has repeatedly called attention to the humanitarian impact of climate change, particularly in exacerbating these crises related to food scarcity.
What are famines?
Explanation: Climate change has worsened droughts and food shortages, leading to severe malnutrition and hunger crises that MSF frequently responds to with emergency nutrition programs.
500
MSF often operates in places where this international law, designed to protect medical personnel and facilities, is frequently violated.
What are the Geneva Conventions?
Explanation: The Geneva Conventions set legal protections for medical workers in conflict zones, but attacks on MSF hospitals have become increasingly common in modern warfare.
500
MSF frequently runs oral rehydration therapy centers to combat dehydration caused by this waterborne bacterial infection.
What is cholera?
Explanation: Cholera causes severe dehydration, often leading to death. MSF responds with oral rehydration therapy, IV fluids, and sanitation measures.
500
MSF’s emergency response to the 2010 earthquake in this Caribbean country included providing surgical care for thousands of injured people.
What is Haiti?
Explanation: MSF performed life-saving surgeries and treated thousands of earthquake survivors, despite damaged infrastructure.
500
One of the key ethical dilemmas MSF faces is the decision of whether to leave a conflict zone when this happens, putting both patients and staff at risk.
What is a security threat?
Explanation: MSF often has to choose between staying to provide care or leaving to protect staff from targeted violence.
500
MSF has been active in fighting drug-resistant tuberculosis, particularly in this region with the highest global burden of TB.
What is South Asia?
Explanation: South Asia, particularly India, has one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). MSF provides diagnostic tools and newer TB treatments, which are often too expensive for many patients.