Stories & News

Dr Khairil Musa, an intensive care doctor from Sydney, reflects on his time working with MSF in Aden, Yemen

Mohammad Hashim was the first patient at MSF’s newly opened COVID-19 treatment centre in Gazer Gah hospital in Herat, western Afghanistan. Like many of those in Afghanistan, Mohammed was initially sceptical about the existence of COVID-19. When he first got symptoms, he tried traditional medicine, but as his condition deteriorated, he made the journey to hospital. 

The United States government must suspend all deportations to Latin America and the Caribbean as these actions are moving people from the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic to countries with lower rates of transmission and will exacerbate a public health crisis in the region.

After more than a decade of armed conflict, outbreaks of severe malnutrition, malaria, measles and cholera, approximately 1.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Borno state now face the spectre of COVID-19. Many live in vastly overcrowded camps with poor water and sanitation facilities, limited supplies of hygiene essentials such as soap and water, and often no individual space at all. Functioning health infrastructure in Borno is scarce, and the capacity to refer patients is extremely limited. 

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls for no patents or profiteering on drugs, tests, or vaccines used for the COVID-19 pandemic, and for governments to prepare to suspend and override patents and take other measures, such as price controls, to ensure availability, reduce prices and save more lives.

Tankred Stöbe, MSF emergency coordinator, visited several countries in South-East Asia to assess their preparedness for potential outbreaks of COVID-19 and the support MSF could provide at this stage. He participated in training sessions with healthcare staff in a hepatitis C clinic in Phnom Penh A similar training was held in a hospital in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, where MSF treats patients with tuberculosis. The training sessions helped to improve knowledge and reduce fear among the staff, two prerequisites for providing the best level of care to our patients.