Adapting essential care programs to Covid-19 pandemic times

On 3-4 May in Nairobi, Kenya, MSF gathered staff from our projects with experts from academia, clinical practice and the non-governmental sector to consider key issues in humanitarian paediatrics. These included: Vaccination and vaccine-preventable diseases: Amid post-Covid-19 global setbacks in child vaccination coverage, sessions spotlighted recent increases in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks, potential new vaccination strategies and emergency responses, and MSF’s role in vaccine advocacy and catch-up campaigns. Nutrition: Talks covered the nexus of nutrition with other key conference topics, the latest malnutrition guidance and tools, and MSF’s priorities in nutritional care. Paediatric HIV: With half of all HIV-positive children globally not receiving antiretroviral therapy, presenters reviewed the latest paediatric testing/treatment recommendations and discussed barriers and potential solutions to implementation, nutritional challenges in children with HIV, and systems strengthening for preventing and monitoring paediatric HIV. Click below to read the abstracts. And stay tuned for more conference content, coming soon.

"Clean hands, safe care" is the theme of this year's World Hand Hygiene Day. At MSF, we know that Hand Hygiene is the simplest and best way to prevent the transmission of infections in our facilities. This collection features some lessons learned about hand hygiene and infection, prevention, & control (IPC) in MSF projects, especially in resource-constrained environments in the Sahel, and in the era of COVID-19.

Viral hepatitis is a major cause of disease and death globally. To mark World Hepatitis Day (July 28th) we present a selection of recent MSF research exploring how to effectively deploy powerful medical tools that could turn the tide on hepatitis C and E—but now reach only a tiny fraction of people who desperately need them, especially in low-resource and emergency settings. For hepatitis C, where groundbreaking new antiviral drugs can cure nearly all patients, MSF is piloting simplified, community-based models of care that offer rapid screening, diagnosis, and treatment under one roof. Some programs focus on the complex needs of highly vulnerable, hard-to-reach populations, such as people co-infected with HIV or TB or who inject drugs. Turning to prevention, an ongoing vaccination campaign against hepatitis E in an outbreak setting is showing early signs of short-term protection. Final results from this South Sudanese refugee camp, where poor sanitation and water quality regularly lead to outbreaks, should help plug a key evidence gap that—along with other barriers discussed in a commentary article—impedes widespread uptake of the vaccine.