COVID-19 PPE supplies for Cusco, Peru

Hello friends, colleagues, and comrades! Please consider donating to help me deliver medical supplies to a remote reproductive health clinic in Peru. The COVID-19 pandemic has up-ended life for all of us, and those living in remote mountainous regions of the Andes are no exception. The ancient capital of the Incan empire known today as Cusco has suffered over 70,000 cases of COVID-19 with close to 5,000 deaths. That's one death for every 14 people diagnosed. In comparison, US cities have seen much lower mortality rates - one death for every 43 cases in Baltimore and one death for every 34 cases in NYC. Like Paul Farmer and many global health advocates have proven, this imparity is driven by global allocation of resources. Peru only began administering vaccines to the public in March 2021 as part of the COVAX Facility donation from global aid organizations including UNICEF, PAHO, and the WHO. Today, 27% of peruanos are fully vaccinated, leaving many still at risk of serious illness from the highly transmissible lambda variant which originated in Peru last year. With just a small donation of PPE and medical supplies, together we can reduce the burden on healthcare workers and patients in Cusco, inspire confidence in the modern healthcare system, and promote reproductive justice.

Please donate here or directly purchase products in my Amazon wishlist until 10/1/2021: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/27209TPGQLQA...

This campaign is run by Erica (she/they), who is a queer, white, genderfluid medical student hailing from Baltimore, MD, USA. In 2014, Erica designed a program addressing water, sanitation, and hygiene in the Aymaran community of northern Chile, and they are excited to return to the Andean altiplano. They will be working in a reproductive health clinic in Cusco, Peru, while also training in ultrasonography and wilderness first response. Erica plans to pursue global emergency and wilderness medicine to transform systems of mutual aid and intentionally benefit gender-diverse, BIPOC, and Latinx folks in the USA and internationally. They admire the revolutionary abolitionist feminist Angela Davis and echo her struggle: "we must always attempt to lift as we climb."