Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders gives medical care to people affected by war, disease outbreaks and disasters. It works in more than 70 countries, often where people cannot get normal health care, and stays independent of politics and religion. Its U.S. office is based in New York.

A group of French doctors, including Bernard Kouchner, started Medecins Sans Frontieres in Paris on December 22, 1971, after working through the Biafra crisis. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for its medical work in crisis zones. Today it has more than 67,000 staff in more than 75 countries, and its teams handled about 17.1 million medical consultations in one year. That means a group started by doctors frustrated by the rules now runs one of the largest medical aid networks in the world.¹