Epilepsy does not stop at borders - but access to treatment often does.

I implore you to read this from a humanitarian stand point, from the point of view of the innocent civilians, innocent human beings being effected by global conflict and insurgency. For millions of people living with epilepsy, daily anti-epileptic medication is the difference between stability and constant danger. Yet in many parts of the world, these life-saving medicines are unavailable, inconsistent, or completely out of reach.

In countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Palestine, Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria, Myanmar, Haiti, and Yemen, ongoing conflict, civil war, economic collapse, and political instability have devastated healthcare systems. Hospitals are damaged or destroyed, supply chains are disrupted, and medications that should be basic are either absent or unaffordable. Even when drugs do arrive, shortages mean treatment is often interrupted - a serious risk for people with epilepsy.

Across Africa's Sahel region - including Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger - widespread insurgencies and insecurity have forced clinics to close and healthcare workers to flee. Rural communities are particularly affected, with some people traveling days to reach care, only to find that essential epilepsy medications are unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

The consequences are severe. Without consistent access to medication, people with epilepsy face increased seizures, injury, stigma, exclusion from education and employment, and a higher risk of preventable death. Children miss school, their neurovdevelopment suffers. Adults are unable to work. Families are pushed deeper into poverty - not because epilepsy is untreatable, but because treatment is inaccessible.

Epilepsy is one of the most manageable neurological conditions. The tragedy for a lot of people around the world is not the condition itself, but the global inequality that determines who gets to control it and who does not.

Access to anti-epileptic medication should not depend on geography, conflict, politics or income. It is not a luxury - it is a basic human right.