In Yemen, ‘hero’ epidemiologist succumbs to COVID-19
20 June 2020 – Years after his retirement, Dr Yassin Abdul-Warith's passion for fighting epidemics across Yemen never waned nor did he rest until he died from one of the diseases he fought: COVID-19. One of the oldest and most well-known epidemiologists in Yemen, Dr Yassin had been working for around 50 years fighting different epidemics in the country, including Rift Valley fever, diphtheria, malaria, cholera and lately COVID-19.
Health care workers on the frontlines of the struggle against COVID-19
15 June 2020 – “I wished desperately that COVID-19 wouldn’t reach Yemen, as we are already suffering from cholera, diphtheria, dengue, malaria and malnutrition compounded with the ongoing conflict that has wrecked the already appalling health system,” said Khaled Mohammed, a laboratory technician in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) COVID-19 department in the Central Laboratory in Sana’a.
After heartbreak, a Pakistani doctor's plea for vigilance against COVID-19
15 June 2020 – “When my son was in his hospital bed, and they were giving him medicine, he’d say, ‘Mama, the mechanism of action of this drug is this, these are the side-effects.’” Dr Shabnam Tahir’s son, Salman, was a medical student preparing to become an anaesthesiologist when COVID-19 started spreading in Pakistan.
Lessons and warnings: One Egyptian doctor’s COVID-19 story
19 May 2020 – When his phone rang in March – a friend calling about his sick mother-in-law – Dr Ahmed Ismail didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary. A doctor of internal medicine and rheumatology in Cairo, he agreed to make a home visit to check on the woman, who had had a fever on and off for days.
On the front line of COVID-19: inspiring stories of health care workers
WHO designated 2020 as the “International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife” and while this designation came prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot think of a better time to honour and recognize nurses for their commitment to the profession. Around the world nurses are on the front lines battling COVID-19 daily. But what does it feel like to be a nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic? Lamees is one of them and this is her story.
