India’s municipal solid waste management (MSWM) system rests on the back of a faceless workforce, comprising a myriad of actors: sanitation workers in the formal sector are contracted directly by the government municipalities and are responsible for sweeping the streets, cleaning drains and transporting the waste to landfills; door-to-door garbage collectors are often subcontracted […]
Category: Outbreak
Ethical Pandemic Control
What makes the difference in whether actions in the face of a pandemic such COVID-19 are perceived as ethical or unethical? And why does this matter to the trajectory of a pandemic? Traditionally in public health ethics, five factors have played a prominent role in ethically responding to an epidemic. Organism biology Infectiousness and […]
Public Health Communication for COVID-19: Can professional health associations in India do more?
The glimmer of hope provided by the damping down of the COVID-19 epidemic curve in China is being compensated for by the rapid rise of the number of cases and deaths in Italy, Iran, and South Korea, with WHO’s risk assessment in China, the Regional Level and the Global Level remaining ‘Very High’. India, […]
COVID-19 in Ecuador: high alert, limited information
With only 17 officially announced cases, Ecuador recently declared COVID-19 a health emergency, but the announcement was not backed by precise scientific information to fully understand the reasons behind this decision or a contingency plan. Because it was the third country in the region to identify SARS-CoV-2, on February 29, the Ecuadorian government could […]
COVID-19 and the Global Health Workforce
Following the second meeting of the Emergency Committee convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, the novel Corona virus or COVID-19 outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This has negatively impacted the global economy and global travel, with growing concerns for preparedness of health systems worldwide and its […]
Role of the private sector in epidemic response and preparedness
By Jennifer Esposito, Health & Life Sciences, Intel Corporation In today’s interconnected world, pandemic disease threats have the potential to not only have a devastating human impact, but could also cost tens of billions of dollars to the global economy and private enterprise. These threats could exacerbate political and economic instability, and threaten the national […]