Items

• 
  2020-05-11

  Doctors Without Borders Dispatches Team to the Navajo Nation

  “Jean Stowell, head of the organization's U.S. COVID-19 Response Team, told CBS News that Doctors Without Borders has dispatched a team of nine to the hard-hit Navajo Nation in the southwest U.S. because of the crisis unfolding there. The team consists of two physicians, three nurse/midwives, a water sanitation specialist, two logisticians and a health promoter who specializes in community health education. ‘There are many situations in which we do not intervene in the United States, but this has a particular risk profile,’ Stowell said. ‘Situationally, the Native American communities are at a much higher risk for complications from COVID-19 and also from community spread because they don't have access to the variety of things that make it possible to self-isolate… You can't expect people to isolate if they have to drive 100 miles to get food and water.’ Navajo Nation, home to roughly 170,000 people, now has more coronavirus cases per capita than any state in America. Due to a shortage in nursing and specialized medical staff, the most critical patients have to be airlifted to hospitals outside of the reservation. On top of that, Navajo people carry a high rate of diabetes and hypertension, rendering them more susceptible to infection. And as of early May, the region has a higher coronavirus death rate than that of 46 states.”