Iraq: Severe COVID-19 patients in Iraq “were almost sure to die”
February 17, 2021At 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...
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Brazil: COVID-19 disaster unfolding in Amazon
February 12, 2021MSF 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...
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Afghanistan: Keeping an eye on COVID-19 cases in Herat
February 12, 2021Due 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...
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MSF to wealthy countries: Don’t block and ruin the potential of a landmark waiver on monopolies during the pandemic
February 3, 2021Geneva, 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...
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The knock-on effects of COVID-19
February 2, 2021From 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...
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Brazil: COVID-19 leaves Amazonas health system saturated, overloaded and struggling
January 22, 2021The 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,...
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Access to medicines: Will history repeat itself?
January 19, 2021Rebutting 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...
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COVID-19: Governments must act fast on consensus supporting historic move to suspend monopolies during pandemic
December 15, 2020Over 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...
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COVID-19: Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can only be scaled up globally if many more suppliers can produce
December 8, 2020Geneva – 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...
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Responding to COVID-19: Global Accountability Report 2 – June to August 2020
December 2, 2020This report is the second of the accountability reports MSF is producing on our COVID-19 response. Read also the first report, covering the period March - May 2020.The COVID-19 global health crisis continues to hold the world firmly in its grip. In...
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COVID-19: Governments must support landmark proposal to waive COVID-19 patents
November 19, 2020GENEVA - Ahead of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks to consider a landmark request to waive certain intellectual property (IP) during the COVID-19 pandemic – put forward by India and South Africa in October – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls on all...
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MSF: Governments must demand pharma make all COVID-19 vaccine licensing deals public
November 11, 2020Terms of a deal disclosed show that we cannot rely on pharma’s goodwill to do the right thing, even in a pandemic. Geneva, 11 November 2020 – After the worrying terms of a deal struck between pharmaceutical corporation AstraZeneca and...
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