Four months since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the Philippines, the number of cases has risen into the thousands. Testing capacity has expanded rapidly, but testing continues to limit the Philippines response. The Philippines has adopted a “whole of government, whole of society” approach to address this global pandemic, grouped around four […]
Category: COVID-19
Providing primary care in COVID-19 lockdown to rural, underserved areas of Rajasthan, India
The first case of SARS-COV-2 was reported in India in 30th January 2020. A few months down the line, the Government of India announced a sudden lockdown on 24th March. Following the lockdown, all local transport, private and public, came to a halt, private healthcare providers closed their clinics, and government health facilities significantly […]
Remembering February
Looking ahead was what America taught me. As a medical student from India, hospitals were my introduction to American preparedness. When Ebola hit, our hospital created a separate unit and response team way ahead of time. It was a ritual, almost a way of life to account for uncertainty and redundancy. This rigorous prep […]
Loss of trust and reluctance in following COVID-19 protective measures in Iraq
The Iraqi Kurdistan region imposed strong control measures against COVID-19 from the early stages of the outbreak. These measures included cross-border movement limitation with health screening that was followed by complete border closure, banning flights and COVID-19 testing for all people returning to the region from abroad. Furthermore, other measures were implemented, including the […]
COVID-19 Experience Among Slum Dwellers In Nairobi: A Double Tragedy Or Useful Lesson For Public Health Reforms?
While the devastating consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic have not yet been felt by many countries in Africa, the same is not true for many others . For people living in the slums of Nairobi, this disease and the resulting government response have only worsened their livelihood. Despite being a significant size of […]
Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic: Importance of Diagnostics in Healthcare
As the world was preparing to celebrate n December 31, 2019, China began reporting to the World Health Organization (WHO), a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown aetiology in Hubei Province. One month later on January 30, 2020, after further outbreaks in 18 other countries, the WHO announced that a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, […]
Des modèles aux récits et inversement: un appel à des analyses sur le terrain de la propagation et de la réponse du COVID-19 en Afrique
Cette semaine, BMJ Global Health a publié deux modèles mathématiques pour prédire le schéma de propagation et les conséquences potentielles du COVID-19 en Afrique. Ces deux documents sont en avance sur plusieurs autres de ces exercices prédictifs en ce sens qu’ils s’efforcent délibérément de prendre en compte les différentes manières dont les gens vivent leur vie […]
COVID-19 in India: an epidemic in congested cities
WHO declared COVID-19 as Global Pandemic on March 12, 2020, at present, it is devasting entire World with 5691,790 cases and 355,629 deaths [1]. India reported the first case of COVID-19 in end of January 2020, and total reported cases crossed 1,58,000 cases with 4,534 deaths on May 27, 2020. COVID-19 is primarily transmitted […]
How common is “silent” infection with COVID-19? Lessons from an Antarctic cruise
“Covid-19: In the footsteps of Ernest Shackleton” is a brief communication, just published online in Thorax. It describes a cruise ship which set sail after the COVID pandemic was declared, en route for the Antarctic. All passengers had temperature checks on embarkation, but a week into the trip some passengers developed fevers and the […]
Why are funerals superspreading events for COVID-19 in Kurdistan?
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), funerals appear to be one of the most significant superspreading events for COVID-19. Officials from the Ministry of Health (MoH) referred to funerals as the source of clusters of cases in several locations. One funeral, for example, accounted for the largest spike in COVID-19 cases on a single day. The role […]