Myanmar

The major earthquake that struck central Myanmar in 2025 created a crisis within a crisis. It comes as a prolonged armed conflict and political crisis has eroded the health system, making access to care more difficult.

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has worked in Myanmar since 1992. Our focus: providing HIV and tuberculosis care, basic healthcare and reproductive and sexual healthcare services, support for vulnerable people, including the persecuted Rohingya in Rakhine, and emergency responses to national disasters and conflict.

Escalating conflict and prohibited delivery of medical humanitarian assistance has, since 2023, forced us to indefinitely suspend clinics in Kachin, Rakhine and in the north of Shan.

Our medical humanitarian care is now fragmented across the country and focused on where we can still get people and supplies to our clinics. As the frontlines shift, so does our ability to access patients and provide care. We remain flexible and responsive, providing emergency responses wherever possible.

The 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar in 2025 killed or injuring thousands of people and damaged or destroyed buildings and infrastructure. | March 2025 © MSF

Our activities

HIV and tuberculosis care

We pioneered HIV treatment in Myanmar and steadily grew a large patient cohort—with more than 35,000 patients on antiretroviral treatment by 2015, we became the largest provider of antiretrovirals. After 2015, we began working with the Ministry of Health to transfer patients to the decentralised National AIDS Programme, so people could receive care closer to home.

Emergency responses to natural disasters and conflict

We contributed to lifesaving humanitarian care after the major earthquake in 2025 by providing water, sanitation, shelter, relief items, mental health support and medical assistance.

We provided emergency medical care and water, sanitation and hygiene—supplying clean water, repairing latrines and distributing hygiene items—in response to the impact of Cyclone Mocha on Rakhine State in 2023.

Our response to COVID-19 in 2021 included:

opening three treatment centers— in the largest city, Yangon, and the capital Myitkyina and the town of Hpakant in Kachin State
establishing a hotline for people in the border city of Muse and in the capital, Lashio, in the north of Shan State and in the Tanintharyi Region capital Dawei
supplying medical donations, including to the prison in Lashio
offering infection prevention and control training for healthcare workers.

Following Typhoon Giri in 2010, we conducted 17,000 medical consultations through our clinics and distributed food items and construction kits.

Our rapid emergency response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008 provided medical care to more than 550,000 people within 48 hours.

Support for vulnerable people

An extreme escalation of conflict and the burning of our office in the town of Buthidaung in 2024 forced us to indefinitely suspend our medical humanitarian activities in northern Rakhine, where we had been providing essential medical services to all communities, including Rakhine, Rohingya and other minority groups who often had no other access to healthcare.

We provided medical assistance and relief items, including cooking and hygiene kits, to people forced from their homes by violence in Kachin and Shan states in 2022.

International Activity Report map of Myanmar

Our activities in 2023

Data and information from the International Activity Report 2023.

1,330—Staff (full-time equivalent)

€17.7 M—Expenditure

181,600—Outpatient consultations

1,600—People receiving HIV antiretroviral treatment

190—People started on treatment for tuberculosis

Summary

Violence escalated at the end of October in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan states, forcing 660,000 people from their homes and exacerbating the already severe healthcare needs. People struggled to access care, as hospitals ceased to function following attacks or evacuations, and as the warring parties imposed travel restrictions on people and humanitarian organisations.

In response, our teams in Kachin and Shan provided medical support and distributed relief items, such as hygiene and cooking kits, to displaced people. We also increased sexual and reproductive health services and support for victims of sexual violence.

Until November, our mobile teams in Sittwe district, Rakhine, conducted outpatient consultations in remote areas where healthcare is scarce or non-existent or inaccessible due to cost or restrictions on movement. We also identified patients who needed specialised care and supported them with the referral process. This process is particularly challenging for Rohingya people, as they are contained in fenced camps or villages and require permission from the authorities to move around.

When the escalation in conflict prevented our teams from running mobile clinics for the last two months of the year, patients relied heavily on our community health workers and teleconsultations for medical care.

Meanwhile, we extended our support to Aung San TB hospital in the capital, Yangon, where almost 50 per cent of the country’s patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis receive care.

During 2023, we continued the handover of our HIV patients to the Ministry of Health, switching our focus to supporting the national AIDS programme with staff and technical assistance.

In May, after Cyclone Mocha made landfall in Rakhine, causing widespread damage to homes and infrastructure, we delivered medical care to the people affected. We also conducted water and sanitation activities, which included repairing latrines, distributing hygiene items and trucking in clean water.

Afghanistan

Médecins Sans Frontières has been working in Afghanistan since 1980, providing emergency surgical care, responding to conflict and natural disasters, and treating people cut off from healthcare.

Myanmar

Our activities

Our activities in 2023

Summary

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