Ethiopia, Feb. 3 -- The road to Magenta in the Afar region of Ethiopia winds through vast stretches of dry earth and is framed by distant mountains and volcanoes.

Afar, one of the hottest inhabited places on earth, is home to 2 million people who mostly rely on seasonal rainfall, shallow wells, and sometimes trucked water for their needs. The combination of intense heat, unsafe drinking water, long travel distances, and hard-to-reach health facilities creates harsh living conditions of people in Afar, significantly limiting access to timely health care.

Last year, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) began working alongside the Ministry of Health to provide lifesaving treatment for malnourished children and nutritional...