Patient and health-care provider experience of a person-centred, multidisciplinary, psychosocial support and harm reduction programme for patients with harmful use of alcohol and drug-resistant tuberculosis in Minsk, Belarus.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) often concentrates in groups of people with complex health and social issues, including alcohol use disorders (AUD). Risk of TB, and poor TB treatment outcomes, are substantially elevated in people who have AUD. Médecins sans Frontières and the Belarus Ministry of Health have worked to improve treatment adherence in patients with multi-drug or rifampicin resistant (MDR/RR)-TB and harmful use of alcohol.

A Médecins Sans Frontières Ethics Framework for Humanitarian Innovation.

Kiran Jobanputra and colleagues describe an ethics framework to support the ethics oversight of innovation projects in medical humanitarian contexts.

"I can also serve as an inspiration": a qualitative study of the TB&Me blogging experience and its role in MDR-TB treatment.

Background: In 2011, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) established a blogging project, "TB&Me," to enable patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) to share their experiences. By September 2012, 13 MDR-TB patients had blogged, either directly or with assistance, from the UK, Australia, Philippines, Swaziland, Central African Republic, Uganda, South Africa, India, and Armenia. Due to the lack of research on the potential for social media to support MDR-TB treatment and the innovative nature of the blog, we decided to conduct a qualitative study to examine patient and staff experiences.

Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems.

Data on the elderly are rarely collected in humanitarian emergencies. During a refugee crisis in South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières developed a prospective mortality surveillance system collecting data for those aged ≥50 years and found that the elderly were dying at five times the rate of those aged 5-49 years. Practical and ethical issues arose.

TB treatment in a chronic complex emergency: treatment outcomes and experiences in Somalia.

Background: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides TB treatment in Galkayo and Marere in Somalia. MSF international supervisory staff withdrew in 2008 owing to insecurity but maintained daily communication with Somali staff. In this paper, we aimed to assess the feasibility of treating TB in a complex emergency setting and describe the programme adaptations implemented to facilitate acceptable treatment outcomes.

Counselling in humanitarian settings: a retrospective analysis of 18 individual-focused non-specialised counselling programmes.

Background: Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides individual counselling interventions in medical humanitarian programmes in contexts affected by conflict and violence. Although mental health and psychosocial interventions are a common part of the humanitarian response, little is known about how the profile and outcomes for individuals seeking care differs across contexts. We did a retrospective analysis of routine programme data to determine who accessed MSF counselling services and why, and the individual and programmatic risk factors for poor outcomes.

Provision of antiretroviral treatment in conflict settings: the experience of Médecins Sans Frontières.

Introduction: Many countries ravaged by conflict have substantial morbidity and mortality attributed to HIV/AIDS yet HIV treatment is uncommonly available. Universal access to HIV care cannot be achieved unless the needs of populations in conflict-affected areas are addressed.

Methods: From 2003 Médecins Sans Frontières introduced HIV care, including antiretroviral therapy, into 24 programmes in conflict or post-conflict settings, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

Assessing antimalarial efficacy in a time of change to artemisinin-based combination therapies: the role of Médecins Sans Frontières.

Jean-Paul Guthmann and colleagues describe the output of MSF's work in antimalarial efficacy assessment during the last decade.

HIV treatment in a conflict setting: outcomes and experiences from Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Providing HIV care in conflict settings involves additional obstacles to those generally encountered in other resource-limited settings, say Heather Culbert and colleagues.