Afghanistan, Dec. 4 -- When 4-month-old Umar* contracted measles, his eyes were shut for five days from crying so much. He then developed pneumonia, and the private hospital treating him couldn't help him. He eventually made it to a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, where he was able to access care.

"By the time we brought him here, his skin had turned blue, and he couldn't breathe," says his mother, Farzana. "He was almost dead. He had stopped breathing, and the doctors immediately put him on oxygen. His chest was rising and falling heavily. He was in such a bad state that I thought he wouldn't survive."

"I didn't know what to do," she recalls. "When I looked at...