The hospital in Batangafo – a town of 31,000 people, including 22,000 displaced from elsewhere in the Central African Republic – is bustling with activity. While a particular focus has been placed on infection prevention and control measures to identify and isolate people with suspected cases of COVID-19, another deadly disease has a much heavier impact on the … Read more
Irish MSF Project Coordinator Sarah Leahy describes a day working with MSF at a mobile healthcare clinic in Bijapur, India. ‘The car comes to a sudden halt. A herd of cattle blocks the road on which our mobile clinic team is traveling in a convoy from our base in Bijapur, a small town in Chhattisgarh, … Read more
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
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
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
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
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on the Yazidi community in the Sinjar district of northwest Iraq. Although there are not many cases recorded in the area, the restrictive measures adopted in Iraq (as in many other countries worldwide) to curb the spread of the virus are burdening the daily lives and well being of an … Read more
Medical teams at MSF’s COVID-19 treatment centre in Bihar experience various challenges during the process of providing care to patients everyday. Doctors and nurses have to constantly fight not just the disease but also fear, stigma and misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of our counsellors and health educators, we are helping … Read more
In mid-June, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) opened a 100-bed COVID-19 treatment centre in Patna, the capital of Bihar state in northeast India. As coronavirus cases continue to surge across the country (1,6 million cases as of 31 July), we talk to MSF workers and patients living and working on the frontline. They explain … Read more
Iraq has long suffered from war and political instability. The most recent conflict ended in 2017, when Mosul was recaptured after almost three years under the control of the Islamic State (IS) group. Three years later, the consequences of the conflicts in Mosul are still evident. One is the terrible impact on medical care, as many health facilities … Read more