Coronavirus

MSF medical mobile teams vaccinating Elderly people and frontline Healthcare workers in a nursing home in Tripoli. Mohamad Cheblak/MSF Review

Covid-19 Reading List : the vaccines special edition

05/07/2021 Michaël Neuman Natalie Roberts

We can all agree that the emergence of Covid-19 vaccine is “an absolutely astonishing development”, but vaccines are unlikely to completely halt the spread of the virus, let alone eradicate it. Yet even without achieving herd immunity, the ability to vaccinate vulnerable people seems to be reducing hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19. 

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José Rodrigues Emergency Unit (UPA) in Manaus, Brazil, where the Covid situation remains critical. Mariana Abdalla/MSF Opinion

What to think, do and say about the Covid-19 vaccination? 

02/19/2021 Jean-Hervé Bradol Isabelle Defourny

Blog written by Jean-Hervé Bradol, director of studies at the Crash.

Today, in order to obtain supplies of vaccines against Covid-19, there is neither a major difficulty related to price, nor a major obstacle related to intellectual property rules, nor a deficit in bio-medical research. However, these three topics are generally at the heart of MSF's communication in the area of access to medical care for those in most need. Our discourse must therefore evolve.
With the emergence of worrying variants of the virus present in the early stages of the pandemic and, as a consequence, the need to vaccinate on a global scale as quickly as possible, the world is facing a double challenge: biological engineering and ultra-industrial production – “ultra” echoing the need to produce on a global scale in a short period of time.

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MSF intervention in care homes Olmo Calvo/MSF Opinion

I do not clap at 8 o’clock

05/10/2020 Jean-Hervé Bradol

The biggest oversight in the response to this epidemic has been the EHPADs. For the staff, the directive was clear: continue to work and provide an alternative to hospitalisation. No matter the conditions. For the residents, it was to die alone without treatment to alleviate their suffering.

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COVID-19 Project in Mons, Belgium Pablo Garrigos/MSF Interview

The triage procedure

04/06/2020 Jean-Hervé Bradol Elba Rahmouni

In exceptional circumstances where the demand for care exceeds the supply, how do you decide who to start with? Triage is necessary where there is exceptional demand, leading to the use of a specific procedure to establish priorities. Interview of Jean-Hervé Bradol conducted by Elba Rahmouni based on the article “In a disaster situation: get your bearings, triage and act” published in the book La médecine du tri. Histoire, éthique, anthropologie edited by Céline Lefève, Guillaume Lachenal and Vinh-Kim Nguyen.  

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