COVID-19 Case Management in Humanitarian and Low-Income Settings: Dilemmas and Decisions

Featuring: Dr. Rohini Haar, UC Berkeley School of Public Health; Dr. Bhargavi Rao, Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre, Amsterdam; Rachael Cummings, Save the Children; Dr. Momen Mukhtar Abdalla, Al Shaab Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan

This webinar discussed the difficult but central issue of how to manage COVID-19 patients in humanitarian responses and low-income settings. Speakers discussed decision-making on which services to offer, dilemmas to consider, and a real-life scenario treating patients in Sudan. Follow-up discussion questions will be posted on READY’s discussion forum (registration required).

Moderator: Dr. Rohini Haar, University of California Berkeley School of Public Health
Dr. Haar is a lecturer in epidemiology at Berkeley Public Health, a research fellow at the Human Rights Center of the School of Law at UC Berkeley, and a practicing emergency physician. She received her MD from the University of Chicago and her MPH from the Columbia University School of Public Health. Her research focuses on health and human rights, as well as violence against healthcare workers in conflict settings. She has a longstanding association with Physicians for Human Rights.

Presenter: Dr. Bhargavi Rao, Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre, Amsterdam
Dr. Rao is currently the clinical focal point for COVID-19 response in Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre Amsterdam (MSF-OCA), but she is usually the Malaria and Infectious Diseases Specialist based at the Manson Unit (London).  She has worked on infectious disease programming across varied contexts including South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, India, and Venezuela as well as in the UK. She is a medical doctor with a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology from Imperial College London.

Expert Speakers

• Rachael Cummings, Save the Children, London, UK: Ms. Cummings has worked for Save the Children for over 10 years, and is currently the Director of Humanitarian Public Health at Save the Children UK. Rachael has a nursing background and an MSC in Public Health in Developing Countries from LSHTM. Rachael is part of the Save the Children team supporting our colleagues in Cox’s Bazar to adapt and scale its work there in response to COVID-19.
• Dr. Momen Mukhtar Abdalla, Al Shaab Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan: Dr. Momen is a consultant pulmonologist at Al Shaab Hospital in Khartoum and the head of the Sudanese Chest Physician Association. He is currently a member of the COVID-19 case management committee for the Federal Ministry of Health of Sudan.