Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is an international, independent medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency medical aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare. MSF assists people based on need irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation. In more than 70 countries, Médecins Sans Frontières provides medical humanitarian assistance to save lives and ease the suffering of people in crisis situations.

MSF was founded in 1971 in Paris by a group of journalists and doctors. Today, we are a worldwide movement of nearly 65,000 people.

MSF website: www.msf.org

MSF noma website (EN, AR, DE): http://www.noma.msf.org

Claire Jeantet – Noma Campaign Manager:
claire@inediz.com
noma-campaignmanager@oca.msf.org

MSF is part of a collective effort to tackle noma in Nigeria, together with the Federal Ministry of Health and other international organisations and agencies.

In Sokoto, northwest Nigeria, MSF has worked in collaboration with the Ministry of Health since 2014. MSF’s noma programmes include:

• providing treatment for people in the first stages of the disease
• nutritional support
• mental health support
• reconstructive surgery for noma survivors living with severe facial disfigurements. Four times a year, a team of international surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses travel to Sokoto to operate on noma patients alongside Nigerian surgeons.
• outreach with a focus on detection and treatment in Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Zamfara states. Patients treated at the hospital come from all over Nigeria, not only Sokoto and neighbouring states, and include people referred from other MSF projects in the country. 
Since the beginning of the project 789 free of charge surgeries were performed for 550 noma patients. In 2019, teams performed 178 surgeries on 129 patients. In 2020, surgeries were reduced as COVID-19 travel and other restrictions impacted the project, nonetheless 81 surgeries were performed on 73 patients.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling for the World Health Organization (WHO) to recognise noma as a Neglected Tropical Disease

• Risk factors study: Risk factors for diagnosed noma in northwest Nigeria: A case- control study, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006631
• Language and beliefs study: Language and beliefs in relation to noma: a qualitative study, northwest, Nigeria PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0007972
• Traditional healer study: ‘I treat it but I don’t know what this disease is’: a qualitative study on noma (cancrum oris) and traditional healing in northwest Nigeria, International Health: http://doi.org/10.1093/inthealth/ihz066
• Prevalence study: The prevalence of noma in northwest Nigeria, BMJ Global Health, http://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-002141
• Outcomes study: Outcomes at 18 mo of 37 noma (cancrum oris) cases surgically treated at the Noma Children’s Hospital, Sokoto, Nigeria, Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene: doi:10.1093/trstmh/traa061