Lipi Upadhyay 
In late-August, India surpassed the three-million-mark of people infected by COVID-19. Maharashtra has reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country, with more than a quarter of the total. Two in three of these were in the city of Mumbai. Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is one of the most densely populated cities … Read more
On 4 August 2020, a massive explosion caused by chemicals stored in a warehouse at the port in Beirut, Lebanon, left widespread destruction throughout the city, with thousands of people homeless. Teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have been providing assistance. One month after the explosion that rocked Beirut, Jonathan Whittall, former MSF emergency coordinator in … Read more
On 1 June 2020, a new Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak was declared in Équateur province, western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the country’s eleventh recorded epidemic. Declared while DRC was still grappling with the tenth Ebola epidemic in the country’s northeast, and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this new Ebola outbreak in DRC has already spread to 11 health zones in the … Read more
Nigeria’s ‘middle belt’ states, Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa and Taraba, host the largest numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the country, outside of the northeast region. Most people have been uprooted by the so-called ‘farmer-herdsmen’ conflict. At least 160,000 displaced people are scattered across Benue state, according to 2019 estimates. [1] Here, displaced communities, mostly … Read more
As numbers of patients with COVID-19 grow in northeast Syria, the pandemic is having a knock-on impact on other health services in a region where some 700,000 people are displaced from their homes. MSF emergency manager for Syria Will Turner describes the situation across the region and in Al-Hol camp for displaced people, where more than 65,000 people, … Read more
“Spending our lives in the camps is difficult; the area is small and there is no space for the children to play,” says Abu Siddik. He lives in one of the camps in the Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh, where around 860,000 Rohingya refugees are crammed into just 26 square kilometres of land. “I left Myanmar because … Read more
BARCELONA – The horrific death toll of elderly people in care homes during the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain should never happen again. It is estimated that the elderly who died in these centres (27,359 between 6 April and 20 June, according to the Ministry of Health) represent 69 per cent of all … Read more
Stobdan Kalon is a medical doctor working with Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). His experience spans from managing infectious diseases, interventions in Drug Resistant-Tuberculosis (DR-TB), hepatitis and HIV. As a doctor, I am elated that the World Health Organization (WHO) has updated their DR-TB treatment guidelines, which approves concomitant use of Bedaquiline and Delamanid … Read more
Challenges, fears and stigma of working on the frontline of COVID-19 in India. A blog by Smriti Singh* The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a unique challenge before frontline workers — it is to strike a balance between helping patients cope with inaccurate beliefs about the disease and managing their own fears. Three months ago, when … Read more
A week after the devastating blast that took place in Beirut, Lebanon on 4th August 2020, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is carrying out an emergency response to provide medical support to the people most impacted by the explosion. MSF’s activities cover three main areas of intervention: wound care for people still suffering from injuries, continuity of care for chronic … Read more