Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) reports that it performed nearly 20,000 surgical procedures with a death rate of just 0.2% in resource-limited settings between 2001 and 2008, showing that with appropriate minimal standards, surgical care can be provided safely and cheaply, says an article in Archives of Surgery, a JAMA/Archives journal. No more than 4% of the 230 major surgical procedures that are performed globally are done in poor-income countries, the researchers say.

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) reports that it performed nearly 20,000 surgical procedures with a death rate of just 0.2% in resource-limited settings between 2001 and 2008, showing that with appropriate minimal standards, surgical care can be provided safely and cheaply, says an article in Archives of Surgery, a JAMA/Archives journal.