Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has begun treating COVID-19 patients in Tijuana, the epicenter of the outbreak in Baja California, northwestern Mexico, the international medical humanitarian organization announced today.
Tijuana, which borders San Diego, has the largest number of cases of COVID-19 in Baja California and one of the highest numbers of deaths in Mexico.
“We will be providing support to health institutions [by] relieving the hospital burden in Tijuana,” said Maria Rodríguez Rado, MSF’s COVID-19 emergency response coordinator in Mexico. “Through this support we want to relieve the enormous workload of health workers who are responding to this pandemic and help alleviate the suffering of patients.”
MSF’s response—which is in collaboration with Baja California state Secretary of Health and Apoyemos Tijuana (Let's Support Tijuana), a civil society organization—will focus on the treatment of non-critical COVID-19 patients transferred from the Tijuana General Hospital. The facility where MSF is working was set up by Apoyemos Tijuana in a newly opened basketball gym and is fully equipped to function as an extension of the Tijuana General Hospital, with MSF responsible for medical operations.