Read how the MGH Center for Global Health has worked in partnership with our local and global communities to support COVID-19 pandemic responses.
Holyoke COVID-19 Community Antibody Study Takeaways: An Interview with Ryan Paxton, MPH
When COVID-19 forced public health organizations to act, the universal strategy included social distancing, quarantine measures, comprehensive contact tracing and testing, mask wearing, and other strategies in order to prevent the virus from spreading. Enacting this strategy taxed public health infrastructure across the globe. In many communities in the United States, this constellation of responses required local Boards of Health to significantly alter their operations. In Holyoke—a city in [...]
Mass General dispatches team to support COVID-19 response in Uganda
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Global Health (CGH) is deploying a team on Thursday, June 24 to Mbarara, Uganda in collaboration with Build Health International to support efforts to treat patients with COVID-19 infections. "This is not just about access to resources, it is about access to vaccines. There is a connection between current COVID-19 surges and lack of vaccine access and equity." While many areas across [...]
Answering the Call in India and Beyond
As we in Boston and across the United States gradually emerge from the isolation of COVID-19, we can begin to breathe a cautious sigh of relief. This is not the case for everyone around the globe. Health systems in India, Brazil and other countries in Southeast Asia are currently overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases. On May 6, India — the world’s second most populous country, with 1.4 billion citizens — [...]
Global Disaster Response Returns to Matamoros, Mexico and Supports India’s COVID-19 Response
This story is part of our Summer 2021 Newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. MATAMOROS, MEXICO is a city located on the Mexico-United States border and the receiving site for many individuals seeking asylum who have been sent back from the United States while they await their immigration hearings. Although the Biden administration altered Trump-era immigration and asylum policies to allow more asylum seekers into the United [...]
Supporting COVID-19 Response Efforts in India: A Conversation with Dr. Pooja Yerramilli
On May 5th, India reported 412,431 new COVID-19 infections and 3,980 deaths. Since mid- April, the country has seen an increase in infections and deaths which has rapidly overwhelmed the country’s healthcare and public health infrastructure. Pooja Yerramilli, MD, MPH, MGH Global Medicine Resident shares an update on the situation and work being done through the volunteer group India COVID SOS, whom she volunteers with. From the conversations you [...]
Supporting India’s COVID-19 Response
On Monday April 26, India reported 352,991 cases of COVID-19 infection, breaking the world-record for daily cases in a country for the fifth consecutive day. On the same day, India reported 2,812 deaths, bringing the country’s total to 195,123 deaths. India has vaccinated less than 10% of its population and is struggling to meet vaccine demand. Though the country has been an important producer of vaccine doses, many of [...]
Steering the Asylum Clinic to the Future: How the Asylum Clinic Responded to 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 [...]
Center for Global Health hosts webinar: COVID-19 Vaccine & Global Health Equity: From Action to Impact
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, [...]
An Open Letter on Global COVID-19 Vaccine Equity
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 [...]
MGH Global Disaster Response and Global Nursing Program join together to support clinical responses in Matamoros, Mexico and Pine Ridge, South Dakota
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Global Health (CGH) Office of Global Disaster Response and Humanitarian Action (GDR) has teamed up with the MGH Global Nursing program to provide clinical care responses in Matamoros, Mexico and Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Flags hang in the Matamoros camp representing the home countries of camp residents. Matamoros, a border city and receiving site for individuals seeking asylum in the [...]
Helping Holyoke Fight COVID-19
In the spring during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts, Harvard Medical student Ahmed Elnaiem saw firsthand how equity issues affected residents in Holyoke, one of the poorest cities in the state. Ahmed’s interest in social justice stems from his own childhood. His passion for exploring medicine’s role in addressing inequities led him to his mentor, Louise Ivers, MD, executive director of the Center for Global Health at Massachusetts General [...]
Building Global Health Resilience in the Face of COVID-19
AT THIS PIVOTAL MOMENT in global health, Vanessa Kerry, MD, MSc, is among the Mass General leaders working tirelessly to address the deep-rooted health disparities that have put the world’s most vulnerable populations at higher risk of COVID-19 infection and death. In the U.S., the death rate in areas with majority populations of color is six times higher than in majority non-Hispanic white areas, according to analysis by the [...]
Lab Collaboration Increases COVID-19 Testing Capacity in Haiti, Bangladesh
THE MASS GENERAL Center for Global Health (CGH) played a key role in the dissemination of MGH’s COVID ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) antibody test to support the urgent need for accurate testing and disease surveillance in Haiti and Bangladesh.Once Mass General had its ELISA test developed in March, Jason Harris, MD, MPH, Chief of Pediatric Global Health at Mass General Hospital for children, CGH Executive Director Louise Ivers, MD, MPH, [...]
New COVID Treatment Center in Mbarara to See First Patients
ON APRIL 1, Mass General Center for Global Health (CGH) partner Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH) broke ground on a new temporary COVID-19 Treatment Center that will more than triple the hospital’s capacity to properly manage, isolate and treat patients with COVID-19 as well as other highly infectious diseases. MRRH is a 600-bed hospital with a current full isolation capacity of only 16 beds housed in a temporary shed. [...]
Nurses Deployed to Navajo Nation
THIS SUMMER, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Global Health (CGH) Office of Global Disaster Response and Humanitarian Action (GDRHA), in response to a request for support from longtime GDRHA partner Project Hope, deployed four experienced nursing staff to the Navajo Nation to assist with the care of patients admitted to Indian Health Service facilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Team Lead and Director of Global Disaster Response and [...]
New Protective Booths Improve COVID Testing
AN INNOVATIVE SOLUTION from Mass General employees is helping increase testing capacity while limiting risk to health care providers and patients and conserving limited supplies of personal protective equipment. Kristian Olson, MD, Director of CAMTech and Mass General Hospital’s Springboard Studio, in conjunction with an external design firm, has developed “Hexapods”—personal protective booths equipped with three gloved external hand ports, allowing clinicians to administer a swab test to patients [...]
Holyoke COVID-19 Community Antibody Study
The Holyoke Board of Health and Massachusetts General Hospital are conducting a research study to determine how many people in Holyoke have had COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. It aims to find out who has been most at risk for COVID-19 so far, and to learn more about how it spreads. Why is it important? The spread of COVID-19 has impacted many communities, forcing city and state [...]
Mass General Deploys Team to Support COVID-19 Response in Navajo Nation
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Global Health (CGH) Office of Global Disaster Response and Humanitarian Action (GDR) has deployed a team this week to provide a professional response in support of one of the many communities of the Navajo Nation affected by COVID-19. The Navajo Nation has the highest COVID-19 infection rate per capita than any individual US state. The Indian Health Service (IHS), which provides direct [...]
Global Health Collaborative Builds New COVID-19 Treatment Center
Led by Stephen Asiimwe and Annet Kembabazi, The Global Health Collaborative (GHC) is closely working with key partners, Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH), and CGH Boston, to enhance capacity and support for regional COVID-19 response. With support of The Wyss Foundation, and in collaboration with MUST senior leaders, we are repurposing some resources from the First Mile program towards the COVID-19 response. [...]