MSF: Personal protective equipment must be distributed equitably and transparently

A form of regulation is urgently needed to ensure a more equitable distribution of medical supplies to protect medical staff and prevent interruptions in care.

“We must prevent hospitals from becoming amplifiers of the epidemic,” said Christine Jamet, MSF’s director of operations in Geneva. “For this, we need to effectively protect health workers, including in areas where the virus is still at an earlier stage of spreading. For the moment, too many health care workers across the world are unprotected in the face of COVID-19.”

When hospitals become centers for spreading the disease, then health workers become sick and incapacitated, fear spreads, and medical services can’t be maintained. The lack of adequate PPE for health workers can disrupt the provision of health care for everyone.

This has already started to happen in some of the countries where MSF works. In Yemen, our trauma hospital in Aden has been admitting more patients after other hospitals closed their doors. In Kenya, lifesaving MSF activities in one of Nairobi’s poorest areas might have to close in a few weeks if a reliable supply of PPE is not ensured.

Since the beginning of the outbreak, a number of initiatives have been launched by the United Nations, the G20, and the World Health Organization, among others, aiming at improving access to much-needed PPE everywhere. These initiatives represent positive steps on paper, but they won’t be effective unless they have a form of regulatory power which is imposed on individual countries and manufacturers.

In addition to the need for more efficient allocation of PPE, there is also the need for increased production to meet growing demand. Here, too, a regulatory mechanism would be essential to ensure that medical supplies meet the necessary quality standards.

“We and the partners we are working with across the world are struggling against the odds to continue to provide lifesaving care and to respond to COVID-19 in the most difficult circumstances,” Allafort-Duverger said. “But for this, we need transparency and equity to be brought back to the currently out-of-control PPE market—and we can’t count on states or companies to do so voluntarily.”

MSF is currently responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in countries across the world, either by adapting its existing activities or by opening new programs. MSF’s response includes supporting authorities to provide care for COVID-19 patients, keeping essential medical services running, and addressing medical and social needs of the most vulnerable communities.