Covid-19 and Yemen - Doctor to Doctor workshop - 6th July 2020

On the 6th of July, Forward Thinking in collaboration with the Order of Malta, held the third Doctor to Doctor dialogue meeting on Yemen. At this meeting, we were fortunate to also have medical experts from Saudi Arabia's King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre who shared their insights in combatting Covid-19. Doctors involved in containing the Ebola outbreak in central Africa were also present to share insights on protecting health care workers.A central challenge in Yemen remains securing accurate data. Officially, the country has had 1,269 cases of the disease and 339 deaths (an official mortality rate of almost 27%). This is widely believed to be an underestimate due to the lack of PCR testing kits and limited capacity to process the tests that are available. However, there is positive news in that reports from health care centres seem to suggest there have been a reduced rate of people presenting at hospitals with Covid symptoms, which some Yemeni health care workers hope is a sign that the spread of the virus is slowing.Health care experts from Europe and the region reiterated that in their experience the only effective tools for containing the virus is strict social distancing and widespread use of protective clothing. While accepting that social distancing is extremely challenging in the Yemeni context, it was emphasised that strict adherence to basic principles could still help to slow the spread of the virus. This includes regular handwashing, the use of surgical masks for both patients and healthcare workers, limiting contact time in indoor spaces with Covid patients, screening and separating suspected Covid cases from other patients, and keeping Covid patients self-isolating at home – rather than in hospitals – where-ever possible.The insights from this workshop will be shared with a wider network of Doctors in Yemen in the coming days.