ROME—Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in Italy are providing support to Italian health authorities in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. MSF staff are based in four hospitals in the northern Italian province of Lodi, part of the Lombardy region, the epicenter of the outbreak in the country.
The MSF team in Lodi province is composed of Italian infectious disease specialists, anesthetists, nurses, and logisticians who are bringing their global experience managing epidemics in the diverse countries where MSF works to support Italian hospitals. The MSF staff are working in collaboration with local health authorities and personnel of hospitals in the cities of Lodi, Codogno, Casalpusterlengo, and Sant’Angelo Lodigiano on a number of activities, including disease prevention and care for patients.
We are providing support to help with the huge needs and workload of local hospital staff in responding to this pandemic, to help care for patients.
DR. CLAUDIA LODESANI, PRESIDENT OF MSF ITALY
The addition of MSF personnel at Codogno hospital will make around 20 existing beds that had gone unused due to a lack of staff available again. The MSF team will work alongside doctors and nurses from the hospital's other departments to care for COVID-19 patients.
“We’ve met doctors and nurses in Lodi province who have been working tirelessly for weeks in an extraordinary situation,” said Dr. Claudia Lodesani, an infectious disease specialist and president of MSF Italy, who is coordinating MSF’s COVID-19 response in the country. “We are providing support to help with the huge needs and workload of local hospital staff in responding to this pandemic, to help care for patients.”
The infectious disease support activities will reinforce prevention and control actions already implemented within the hospitals to avoid the transmission of the virus and guarantee the safety of health workers.
“In an epidemic like this, stopping the transmission of the virus is crucial," said Dr. Lodesani. "In hospitals it is key to reduce the risks for frontline staff, a key factor to fight the epidemic. Outside, everyone must respect the instructions of the Ministry of Health to curb the infection and avoid further burdening hospitals, which need to continue to treat people for other illnesses and injuries.”
MSF is supporting the response in Italy because the country is among those worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our teams are working in solidarity with the Italian people and the health care professionals on the frontline of the pandemic response.
We are also in contact with health authorities in other countries where we work regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the pandemic's scale, MSF’s ability to support other countries will depend on the nature of the outbreak and on our capacity to deploy.
