COVID-19

The MGH Asylum Clinic at the Center for Global Health—founded in October 2017—provides forensic medical and psychological evaluations to survivors of persecution seeking asylum in the United States and to seeks to educate the medical community on caring for asylum-seekers and refugees. Since its inception, the clinic, a part of the MGH Center for Global Health’s Disaster Response and Humanitarian Action programs, has completed evaluations for 325 asylum-seekers. Asylum Clinic Director Matthew Gartland, MD, shares updates on the clinic and the current efforts being made to increase clinic’s capacity and advocate for asylum-seekers and detainees. What services does the Asylum [...]

On December 8, 2020 the first COVID-19 vaccine was administered in the United Kingdom. However, before vaccine manufacturing had been completed, global powers had bought up a disproportionate number of doses, leaving low and middle-income countries scrambling to figure out how to purchase doses for their residents. “We have to work, as Dr. King referred to in 1963, ‘in the fierce urgency of now,’” said John Nkengasong, MSc, PhD, and Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. “If we don’t really use that fierce urgency of now, then we are in trouble. This virus will become endemic [...]

March 3rd, 2021 An open letter to President Biden, and leaders of the US pharmaceutical industry, On February 24th, 2021, Ghana received the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccine secured by COVAX, the World Health Organization’s facility for global vaccine distribution. While this was an important milestone for the countries relying on COVAX to procure COVID-19 vaccinations, this shipment comes more than two months after the U.S. and other high-income countries began vaccinating their populations. Notably, it represents a tiny fraction of the doses needed to vaccinate even front-line healthcare workers on the African continent, never mind other groups globally that [...]