The COVID-19 pandemic has heaped misery on Mexico, with more than 70,000 deaths, a tally surpassed only by the USA, Brazil, and India. The country has pursued a strategy of not testing widely or contact tracing, but instead monitoring hospital capacity to inform the relaxation of restrictions. Approximately 98,000 Mexican health-care workers were infected between Feb 28 and Aug 23, according to the Pan American Health Organization. On Sept 2, a survey found that nearly half of Mexican health workers were not provided PPE at work. A report from Amnesty International said that more Mexican health-care workers had died of COVID-19 (1320) than in any other country.
Unfortunately, our programs have not been immune to this. Our lead doctor, Lily Garcia was infected with COVID back in July. She is fine now and back at work caring for and treating children with cancer.
The needs right now are staggering in Mexico in the midst of COVID-19. With your support, we have been securing PPEs for pediatric staff at our hospitals.
In July, one of our board members faciliated a donation from Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital for 100 face shields (50 for Veracruz and 50 for Oaxaca) and 25 caps with the faceshield, which are very useful for the children without hair. The cost is only around $10 per cap and we still desperately need more.
In June, we launched a new virtual platform for training nurses in Mexico. Initial sessions were attended by 40-50 nurses – and the last one was attended by over 200 nurses from several different hospitals! Your donations will help train many more nurses about diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancer while also helping to protect them from COVID-19 with proper PPE equipment.
We continue with the nurse program training and have the 4th conference next week.
During the pandemic, World Child Cancer has continued the essential antibiotic and antifungal program in Oaxaca and Pachuca. We donated amphothericine B antifungal medication to the hospitals that is exclusively use for high risk fungal infections. We continued to support the craft project in Oaxaca for the parents support group to help them make additional income to assist with hospital and treatment expesnes. We assisted with the distribution of educational materials aimed at improving dental care and nutrition for children with cancer (see the flyers). Patient case reviews continued with 20 different doctors around the country. We are also excited to announce that we completed the first online conference for nurses, with over 34 nurses attending! Thank you so much for your support!
Links:
