At the time of writing, there have been 4 258 666 cases of coronavirus globally since the first case was reported on the 31st December 2019 (1). This has had far reaching impacts in all aspects of life, resulting in lockdown of a third of the world’s population (2) at its peak and significant alteration […]
Month: August 2020
Physician Shield Thyself
We are foundation doctors who have been advised to ‘shield’ and are clinically defined as ‘extremely vulnerable’ (1). We are one of many groups within the wider population of doctors whose personal and working lives have been impacted by COVID-19. Our position has shifted from practicing doctors to ‘extremely vulnerable’ members of society. Public Health […]
Tobacco industry lobbies Bangladesh Government Agency to champion its business during COVID-19 pandemic
ABM Zubair Bangladesh has seen an unprecedented level of tobacco industry interference during the COVID-19 crisis. The tobacco industry in Bangladesh, dominated by two transnational tobacco companies, British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI), has exploited the ongoing pandemic to protect its cigarette business. While publicly building their image by making donations […]
India’s regulatory struggle to rein in smokeless tobacco use: is Covid-19 a game changer?
Deepak Mishra, Riddhi D’souza, Adhip Amin, Pranay Lal and Dr. Kaushal Kishore India has introduced laws for some of the most stringent physical distancing measures in the world. In addition to these measures, which started on 25 March 2020, there have been a range of restrictions introduced to contain the potential for smokeless tobacco use […]
COVID-19 in Kenya: 150 days of learning
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 […]
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 […]