On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, a worldwide pandemic. Since January 2020, MSF teams around the world have been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, in both countries where we’ve previously worked, and those we haven’t had to work in before. Meanwhile, we have also ensured people … Read more
At the end of July 2020 in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, something strange started happening. In hospitals across the city, the doctors and nurses sweating in the Iraqi summer heat noticed that while their COVID-19 intensive care units were ever full, the wards for people with less severe cases were emptying out. “The hospitals had been over-capacity … Read more
MSF teams struggle to keep up as COVID-19 cases surge, health system collapses NEW YORK/RIO DE JANEIRO —The descent into a second COVID-19 catastrophe in Brazil’s Amazon region is now unfolding in the Amazonas State capital, Manaus, said the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). All intensive care unit beds are full, there are long … Read more
Due to an increase in the number of people with severe COVID-19 in Herat, western Afghanistan, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) COVID-19 treatment centre in Gazer Ga reopened on 2 December 2020. The centre reopened to support the Ministry of Public Health’s COVID-19 referral structure in Shaidayee hospital with the increase of cases; currently, the average … Read more
Geneva, Switzerland — Ahead of the next round of talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to discuss a proposal by South Africa and India to waive monopolies on COVID-19 medical tools during the pandemic, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on the wealthy countries opposing the proposal not to block it and ruin … Read more
From Latin America to Africa and from Asia to Europe, the pandemic has cost millions of lives. At the same time, it has affected people’s ability to access essential health services. In many places, the devastating knock-on effects of the pandemic have left people without life-saving assistance. MSF teams working in more than 70 countries … Read more
The health system in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, in northwestern Brazil, has collapsed for the second time. Although hospitals have been adding COVID-19 bed capacity at an astonishing rate, the numbers of new patients with the coronavirus have continued to grow even faster, meaning the entire health system is saturated and overloaded. More seriously, the city’s capacity to … Read more
Rebutting pharma’s rejection of a global COVID-19 IP waiver By Felipe Carvalho, Yuanqiong Hu, Leena Menghaney In response to the COVID-19 “TRIPS waiver” proposal submitted by South Africa and India for a temporary waiver from certain pharmaceutical intellectual property (IP) obligations at the World Trade Organization (WTO), Thomas Cueni, the director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical … Read more
Over 100 countries support the landmark proposal Geneva —Ahead of a critical meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO) tomorrow — and against the backdrop of COVID-19 cases surging globally — the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières /Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urged all countries to act in solidarity and build consensus around the … Read more
Geneva – As the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) starts meeting today and later this month to discuss emergency use authorisation of both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine candidates, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warns that any eventual COVID-19 vaccine approval won’t be enough to solve the global pandemic unless corporations take urgent … Read more