Coronavirus COVID-19 has made Yemen's health system collapse complete | MSF

“At first, there were many volunteer doctors and nurses around,” remembers Dr Nizar Jahlan, “but when they knew that cases were coming to the hospital, they all disappeared.” This is how the story of COVID-19 began in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is supporting the Ministry of Health to run the city’s principal centre to treat the new coronavirus and is planning to expand that support in the coming weeks. “At the beginning we faced many difficulties; the hospital lacked almost everything that it needed, but we brought in what we could in terms of drugs, and personal protective equipment to start activities,” said Dr Jahlan, who is MSF’s Medical Activity Manager for the project. “But then we faced problems in finding enough doctors and nurses willing to work in the hospital.”