AYV News, March 4, 2025
Fatmata holds her son Abubakar, who is being tested for malaria. Abubakar is one of many children who arrive daily to the MSF-supported Community Health Centre in Mile 91, Tonkolili
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF)will end its support to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Bombali and Tonkolili districts, Sierra Leone, by the end of the September 2025. Medical activities will then be fully managed by the MoH and other health partners.
Since early 2024, MSF has gradually started reducing oursupport in these districts and assembled a steering committee inclusive of national authorities, health and development partners, and representatives of the communities, to develop a strategic transition plan.
In Bombali district, MSF has been working closely together with the MoH’s National Leprosy and Tuberculosis Control Program (NLTCP) for five years, at the Makeni regional hospital and across 15 peripheral health units. The MSF teams provide support to improve and strengthen the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis (TB), including drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) and drug- sensitive TB (DS-TB).
In 2022, Sierra Leone was the first country in the world to make the shorter six- month all oral regimen treatment routinely available for people with DR-TB. Between 2020 and 2024, in collaboration with the NLTCP, we started 299 patients on DR-TB treatment and 6,593 were enrolled on DS-TB treatment. MSF’s support in Bombali district will conclude in July 2025.
In Tonkolili district, MSF started supporting the MoH primary and secondary health care services in 2016, after responding to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Over the years, our teams improved the access to health services for pregnant women,lactating mothers, and children under the age of five years at the Magburaka Government hospital and the Mile 91 Hinistas community health centre (CHC), as well as several peripheral health units (PHUs) across the surrounding communities.
We have provided 412,987 outpatient consultations since 2016 and assisted 22,229 mothers to safely deliver theirbabies. In these locations, the teams have also provided sexualand reproductive health care to adolescents and women of reproductive age, as well as medical care to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. MSF support to the MoH will end in August 2025 in Mile 91 and its surrounding communities, and in September 2025 in the Magburaka Government hospital.
As an emergency medical and humanitarian organization, we focus our operational priorities according to our resources and worldwide needs. The global situation has changed since MSF began working in these districts, and the decision to end our support for these particular projects in Sierra Leone is due to the increased number of crises around the world, and our bid to optimize our resources to the maximum, to reach morepeople in need in various countries. This is reflected in the number of operations and emergency response MSF has around the world and the need to prepare for global emergencies. In 2024, MSF worked in 75 countries worldwide.
MSF will continue providing medical care in the country, in Kenema district, to improve access to healthcare for pregnant women and children under the age of five years in the MSF Mother and Child hospital in Hangha. We’ll also continue tosupport the MoH’s peripheral health units across the district.We will follow closely the developments in Sierra Leone incase any health emergency response is needed.
“We want to express our thanks to the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health for the collaborative work done over the years in Bombali and Tonkolili districts, and to all the communities we have worked alongside with and who have enabled us to provide medical care to some of their most vulnerable members,” says Yashovardhan, MSF’s Head of Mission inSierra Leone. “We are grateful to our Sierra Leonean and international staff with whom we have provided significant support to the country’s health system. We will continue working together, to ensure a smooth transition and the continuity of medical services to these communities to the best of our ability.”
MSF has been working in Sierra Leone since 1986 responding to various health needs, including cholera and measlesoutbreaks, yellow fever vaccination, maternal and childhealthcare, providing healthcare for people affected by the country’s civil war, emergency response during the Ebola outbreak, COVID 19 outbreak and recent MPox response.
