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Webinar: Confronting COVID-19 in the UK and beyond

29 May 20

Webinar: Confronting COVID-19 in the UK and beyond

For the first time in the organisation's history, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is responding in the UK supporting a centre providing COVID-19 care to London’s homeless community.

On Wednesday 20 May, MSF UK Executive Director Vickie Hawkins welcomed MSF aid workers doctor Alan Pereira and doctor Natalie Roberts to answer your questions about the humanitarian impacts of COVID-19.

Alan led the MSF medical team working at the London COVID Care Centre for homeless people with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

Natalie is the Director of Studies for MSF's reflection centre and prior to that was the Head of Emergency Operations for MSF in Paris. 

At MSF's out-patient department in Batil refugee camp Gandhi Pant, a nurse, escorts a patient with a possible appendicitis to a waiting ambulance. 

Batil is one of three camps in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State sheltering at least 113,000 refugees who have crossed the border from Blue Nile state to escape fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the SPLM-North armed group. Refugees arrive at the camp with harrowing stories of being bombed out of their homes, or having their villages burned. The camps into which they have poured are on a vast floodplain, leaving many tents flooded and refugees vulnerable to disease. Mortality rates in Batil camp are at emergency levels, malnutrition rates are more than five times above emergency thresholds, and diarrhea and malarial cases are rising.

Help us prepare for the next emergency