How does one fight an invisible, insidious, and all but intractable foe worth 30 kb in size? In Kenya, the hundred and fiftieth day of COVID-19 passed on 9th August 2020, nine months after the virus manifested itself in the Chinese province of Wuhan. The pandemic has brought forth some key learnings in the […]
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How contextual issues are jeopardising the COVID-19 response in Mali ?
On 25 March 2020, Mali reported its first imported cases of COVID-19. To curb the spread of the disease, the government had quickly introduced a series of initiatives. These were shutting down borders, imposing a nationwide curfew, closing schools, and establishing a call center to report suspected COVID-19 cases and acquire health information. People […]
Saving lives from COVID-19 is everyone’s responsibility
In the past 6 months, scientists and researchers across the globe have made astonishing progress in advancing the development of vaccines for COVID-19. We are also getting much closer to finding effective treatment options. In clinical development terms, the pace of these efforts is unprecedented, with multiple promising vaccine candidates in or near the […]
There are two pandemics, but why do we keep forgetting the underlying one?
The pervasive poverty pandemic is a major threat to health and survival. History books and fiction frequently feature the tight links between poverty and health, but this ‘common knowledge’ is consistently ignored in political responses to public health challenges. Given the firmly established relationship between poverty and health inequalities, explained by the “inequitable distribution of […]
Hospital-based care for newborns in Malawi: Staying the course for improved outcomes amid COVID-19
As a paediatrician and head of the Department of Paediatrics at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) in Lilongwe, Malawi, my focus is improving care for newborns and children in our hospital and supporting the referring districts. My colleagues and I remain committed to caring for small and sick newborns during the COVID-19 pandemic despite the additional […]
Ghana during COVID-19 : Reflections on Social Capital in Community Participation
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the newly emergent coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has hit Ghana with full blown community transmission to the shock of many policy makers. Effective measures to reduce the transmission of the virus require active support from the population. Ghana’s COVID-19 response plan takes a comprehensive cross-sectoral approach, based on […]
“I can’t breathe” in Kurdistan: Oxygen shortage & COVID-19
On the early hours of June 10th, a nine-year-old boy from Kifri in Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) died from apparent respiratory distress. His family told media outlets that the district general hospital he was taken to did not have enough oxygen supplies to save his life. They also claimed that his father had to […]
COVID-19 in northern Uganda: Resistance, defiance and hospitalising asymptomatic cases
Northern Uganda is emerging from a prolonged civil war which lasted about two decades[1]. During this period many people were killed by the warring groups and the state army, displaced from their livelihood, infrastructure such as hospitals[i][ii]were destroyed[iii]. During this civil war in 2000-2001 that Gulu district had an experience with a plague caused […]
COVID-19 Testing in the Philippines: Enhancing Testing Productivity
The Philippines moved quickly to expand COVID-19 testing capacity, but much of this new capacity remains idle. Emphasis must now shift to increasing productivity, particularly by improving the flow of samples to the laboratories. Preceding entry: Scaling Up Capacity for COVID-19 Testing in the Philippines When the first COVID-19 case was detected in […]
Economic Warfare is Fuelling a Pandemic: US Sanctions to Iran during COVID-19
In March 2020, to the dismay of the public health community, the US government imposed a series of fresh economic sanctions on entities trading with Iran. This is only six days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak “a global pandemic”. While sanctions can have negative effects on population health in times of relative stability, they pose a serious threat to global health […]