Friend: On behalf of everyone at Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), we hope that you and your families are safe and healthy amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Our thoughts are with you and your loved ones during these uncertain times.

As a supporter of our mission to provide care to those who need it most, we wanted to update you on how MSF is responding to the pandemic. Here are just a few of the places where we’re adapting our activities to meet the challenges.

Our teams are working in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Norway, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Ukraine to offer strategic advice, support, and training for frontline health workers as they labor to control the spread of the coronavirus and treat the disease it causes, COVID-19. Two temporary health structures with more than 200 combined beds will be operational in Spain this week and MSF teams are supporting several hospitals across the country with infection prevention and control measures.

In northwestern Syria, where daily bombing and shelling have put 80 hospitals out of service, we are reviewing triage and patient flow in several MSF-supported hospitals to ensure quick detection and isolation of COVID-19 cases. We have also set up hygiene committees in these facilities and donated personal protective equipment to staff. In camps for displaced people we have adapted triage systems and implemented social distancing measures for mobile clinics to ensure safe continued distribution of non-food relief items and health care services.

In just over a month, the rainy season in Nigeria will begin, bringing a surge in cases of malaria and malnutrition. As COVID-19 spreads, our priority is to maintain our operations while protecting our patients and staff. To do this we have reinforced infection prevention protocols, informed local communities on the best prevention measures against COVID-19, set up isolation zones, and adapted our triage processes.

In Mexico, we called on authorities to release all migrants held in detention centers and ensure testing and medical care for people suspected to be infected with the new coronavirus. We have increased medical activities along the border where some 2,000 asylum seekers are stranded in dire conditions. We are providing both physical and mental health services and health promotion.

Last week, we called for no patents or profiteering on drugs, tests, or vaccines used to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic. Governments and companies need to work together to ensure availability, reduce prices, and save more lives from COVID-19.

This is just the beginning—we have started operations or offered support in over 45 countries. We depend on our supporters to ensure that our doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals around the world have the increasingly scarce personal protective equipment and other tools they need to safely provide much-needed care.

We know that times are uncertain, but if you are able, will you make your first monthly gift right now to help Doctors Without Borders respond to the coronavirus pandemic and other emergencies?