Friend: Mohammed didn’t wait to act when his two-year-old son Sheriff began experiencing vomiting spells and diarrhea. He suspected it was cholera, a highly contagious disease that can quickly become deadly without the proper treatment. Luckily, Mohammed knew exactly what to do:

“I told his mother that I’d take him to the hospital as we were constantly being informed through the radio that one should immediately go [when experiencing these symptoms],” Mohammed said. “If we had not come when we did, the situation [could have been very bad].”

Sheriff is one of the more than 90,000 people in Nigeria who were infected with cholera last year. It was considered the country’s worst outbreak in over a decade. With the support of our donors, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams worked with Nigeria's Ministry of Health to conduct door-to-door health promotion and contact tracing, scale up treatment capacity at local health facilities, and implement prevention strategies like chlorinating wells and disinfecting patients’ homes.

This community-based response to the outbreak proved very effective: in the areas where we worked, we managed to reduce the mortality rate from 5 percent to less than 0.5 percent. You can support our response to deadly outbreaks like cholera in more than 70 countries around the world by making a tax-deductible gift to MSF now.

With more than 50 years of experience responding to deadly outbreaks of diseases like cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis, we have a deep well of knowledge that allows us to respond and adapt according to a community's unique needs. Here’s how a generous gift from you now could help us be prepared to respond to the next outbreak:

• Health promotion: We provide people with information and advice on good health practices, treatment, and care. Activities might include health promoters giving a talk in person; sharing messages through the media (e.g. radio) or online; or using stories, songs, and plays.
• Treatment: We collaborate with local health authorities to restock health facilities with lifesaving tools and medications, scale up patient care capacity, and deliver vital aid to remote or hard-to-reach areas via mobile clinics.
• Prevention: We utilize a number of strategies to prevent the spread of deadly diseases. That includes running large-scale vaccination campaigns, distributing preventative medications, repairing hygiene infrastructure, and pre-spraying houses ahead of peak seasons to prevent disease-spreading insects.