4-1 | Up until March 2021, Papua New Guinea had been largely spared of any major COVID-19 outbreak. Within a few weeks, confirmed COVID-19 cases have tripled and increasing numbers of healthcare staff are testing positive, pushing them into home quarantine. The health system in Papua New Guinea is at risk of collapsing as health facilities managing COVID-19 are close to capacity and almost too stretched to provide regular primary healthcare.
3-24 | Since February, another heavy wave of COVID-19 has swept through the West Bank. Over 20,000 patients are currently being treated for COVID-19. This has added further pressure to an already fragile healthcare system, leaving medical staff struggling to provide adequate care to a soaring number of patients. Both the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authorities must immediately, as a matter of the utmost priority, significantly increase efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 and its new variants.
3-10 | MSF International President appeals to governments stonewalling on landmark proposal Geneva, 9 March 2021—As governments prepare to meet for another round of talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) tomorrow, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) urged the small number of governments that continue to block a landmark waiver on intellectual property (IP) during the pandemic to immediately reverse their stonewalling and allow formal negotiations at the WTO to start.
2-26 | The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will meet tomorrow to discuss emergency use authorization of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine candidate. If the vaccine is approved, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) calls on J&J to send its first shipments to COVAX for low- and middle-income countries, rather than high-income countries.
2-24 | Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says the decision by the Malaysian Government to deport 1,086 Myanmar nationals from Malaysia, despite a court order to temporarily halting the deportation, sets a dangerous precedent.MSF’s Head of Mission Dirk van der Tak says: “This deportation takes place only weeks after the military coup in Myanmar. The recent unlawful arrests and detainment of healthcare workers, and people from the wider general public in Myanmar, are a clear indication that the safety of the deportees cannot be guaranteed upon return.”