scholarly journals Appropriate technology adaptation to mitigate community transmission of SARS CoV2 virus in resourced challenged Bhutan and Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-41
Author(s):  
Nadim Reza Khandaker

The SARS CoV2 pandemic has a tremendous impact on both developed and developing countries. To mitigate against community transmission of SARS CoV2 in Southern Bhutan and Central Bangladesh, the development and application of appropriate technologies was undertaken. As an appropriate mitigation, hand washing station was constructed by a simple system. The system was operated using a foot pedal to limit cross contamination by direct hand contact, hand sanitizer utilization and disinfection application in Central Bangladesh. The study highlighted a local innovation in constrained environments to provide public health solutions for preventing the spread of SARS CoV2. The innovation and mitigation measures can be replicated in other resource challenged regions of the world as mitigations steps to limit community transmission of SARS CoV2.

Author(s):  
Purnima K. Burade

Corona virus disease (Covid-19) is endangered in the world. Since the WHO declared it a pandemic and many cities are in lockdown, people have been unable to get out of their homes and thousands of people have already lost their lives. With the outbreak of the global Covid-19 crisis, hand washing and hygiene have become an absolute necessity in daily affairs. The Automatic Mist Based Sanitizer Distribution System is a very useful resource with level monitoring in the fight against corona virus. This contactless delivery system helps clean dry hands regardless of clean surfaces and helps reduce the spread of cross-contamination.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. e002647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Waogodo Cabore ◽  
Humphrey Cyprian Karamagi ◽  
Hillary Kipruto ◽  
James Avoka Asamani ◽  
Benson Droti ◽  
...  

The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been unprecedented in its speed and effects. Interruption of its transmission to prevent widespread community transmission is critical because its effects go beyond the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths and affect the health system capacity to provide other essential services. Highlighting the implications of such a situation, the predictions presented here are derived using a Markov chain model, with the transition states and country specific probabilities derived based on currently available knowledge. A risk of exposure, and vulnerability index are used to make the probabilities country specific. The results predict a high risk of exposure in states of small size, together with Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon. Nigeria will have the largest number of infections, followed by Algeria and South Africa. Mauritania would have the fewest cases, followed by Seychelles and Eritrea. Per capita, Mauritius, Seychelles and Equatorial Guinea would have the highest proportion of their population affected, while Niger, Mauritania and Chad would have the lowest. Of the World Health Organization's 1 billion population in Africa, 22% (16%–26%) will be infected in the first year, with 37 (29 – 44) million symptomatic cases and 150 078 (82 735–189 579) deaths. There will be an estimated 4.6 (3.6–5.5) million COVID-19 hospitalisations, of which 139 521 (81 876–167 044) would be severe cases requiring oxygen, and 89 043 (52 253–106 599) critical cases requiring breathing support. The needed mitigation measures would significantly strain health system capacities, particularly for secondary and tertiary services, while many cases may pass undetected in primary care facilities due to weak diagnostic capacity and non-specific symptoms. The effect of avoiding widespread and sustained community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is significant, and most likely outweighs any costs of preventing such a scenario. Effective containment measures should be promoted in all countries to best manage the COVID-19 pandemic.


The COVID-19 pandemic identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has spread almost to all the countries of the world. The mitigation measures imposed by most of the nations to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have badly hit the global economic activities. As per the latest estimates, the world economy is predicted to decline by 5.2 percent, and world trade is expected to drop by 13-32 percent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way it has created havoc in the world economy and the Indian economy is no exception. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated the Indian GDP growth at 1.9 percent and showed the worst growth performance of India after the liberalisation policy of 1991. According to the World Bank, the Indian economy will contract by 3.2 percent in 2020-21. Daily wage labourers and other informal workers, particularly migrant labourers of economically poor states were the worst hit during the lockdown period and will continue to be adversely affected even after the lockdown was relaxed. The paper suggested multiple measures to support the Indian economic and financial support to all the families of the informal economy workers to tide over this crisis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukman Olagoke ◽  
Ahmet E. Topcu

BACKGROUND COVID-19 represents a serious threat to both national health and economic systems. To curb this pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a series of COVID-19 public safety guidelines. Different countries around the world initiated different measures in line with the WHO guidelines to mitigate and investigate the spread of COVID-19 in their territories. OBJECTIVE The aim of this paper is to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of these control measures using a data-centric approach. METHODS We begin with a simple text analysis of coronavirus-related articles and show that reports on similar outbreaks in the past strongly proposed similar control measures. This reaffirms the fact that these control measures are in order. Subsequently, we propose a simple performance statistic that quantifies general performance and performance under the different measures that were initiated. A density based clustering of based on performance statistic was carried out to group countries based on performance. RESULTS The performance statistic helps evaluate quantitatively the impact of COVID-19 control measures. Countries tend show variability in performance under different control measures. The performance statistic has negative correlation with cases of death which is a useful characteristics for COVID-19 control measure performance analysis. A web-based time-line visualization that enables comparison of performances and cases across continents and subregions is presented. CONCLUSIONS The performance metric is relevant for the analysis of the impact of COVID-19 control measures. This can help caregivers and policymakers identify effective control measures and reduce cases of death due to COVID-19. The interactive web visualizer provides easily digested and quick feedback to augment decision-making processes in the COVID-19 response measures evaluation. CLINICALTRIAL Not Applicable


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1624
Author(s):  
Mario Forzan ◽  
Maria Irene Pacini ◽  
Marcello Periccioli ◽  
Maurizio Mazzei

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a waterborne and foodborne pathogen largely spread around the world. HEV is responsible for acute hepatitis in humans and it is also diffused in domestic and wild animals. In particular, domestic pigs represent the main reservoir of the infection and particular attention should be paid to the consumption of raw and undercooked meat as a possible zoonotic vehicle of the pathogen. Several studies have reported the presence of HEV in wild boar circulating in European countries with similar prevalence rates. In this study, we evaluated the occurrence of HEV in wild boar hunted in specific areas of Tuscany. Sampling was performed by collecting liver samples and also by swabbing the carcasses at the slaughterhouses following hunting activities. Our data indicated that 8/67 (12%) of liver samples and 4/67 (6%) of swabs were positive for HEV RNA. The presence of HEV genome on swabs indicates the possible cross-contamination of carcass surfaces during slaughtering procedures. Altogether, our data indicated that it is essential to promote health education programmes for hunters and consumers to limit the diffusion of the pathogen to humans.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mazin Barry ◽  
Asirvatham Alwin Robert ◽  
Mohamad-Hani Temsah ◽  
Syed Abdul Bari ◽  
Muhammad Yasin Akhtar ◽  
...  

Aim: To determine the frequency, mode of transmission, and outcome of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) among healthcare workers (HCWs) in a tertiary care cardiac center in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Methods: This is a retrospective study of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infected HCWs and was conducted from 2 March to 31 December 2020. Data related to the presence of COVID-19 symptoms, mode of transmission, hospitalization, and mortality were collected from the patients’ medical records. Results: Of the 4462 patients tested for COVID-19 by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), 203 (4.5%) HCWs were positive; of these, 125 (61.6%) were males, and the most common age group was <40 years. The most commonly encountered health professionals were nurses (74, 36.4%), followed by therapists/technicians (48, 23.6%), housekeepers (25, 12.3%), and physicians (21, 10.4%). The majority (184, 90.6%) of the HCWs contracted COVID-19 in the community, and only 19 (9.4%) were healthcare-associated infections. Of the infected HCWs, 169 (83.3%) had mild symptoms and were managed in home isolation. The most common symptoms were fever (128, 63.1%), body ache (124, 61.8%), headache (113, 55.7%), dry cough (123, 60.6%), sore throat (97, 47.8%), body weakness (97, 47.8%), and fatigue (94, 46.3%). Comparing males and females, there was a significantly higher number of female nurses; in contrast, there was a higher number of male physicians, housekeepers, therapists/technicians, and other specialty HCWs. A significantly lower number of nurses, therapists/technicians were infected in the ≥40 years age group compared to <40 years. Furthermore, a significantly higher difference was observed among non-Saudi nurses compared to Saudi nurses. No mortality was documented among the included HCWs. Conclusions: In the largest tertiary cardiac center in KSA, most HCWs who contracted COVID-19 developed mild symptoms; nurses and those aged <40 years were most commonly infected, and most infections were acquired in the community. HCWs’ adherence to mitigation measures outside of the workplace is vital to curb the current pandemic and decrease nosocomial transmission risk.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yang ◽  
Juan Li ◽  
Shengjie Lai ◽  
Corrine W Ruktanonchai ◽  
Weijia Xing ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an ongoing global crisis, but how the virus spread across the world remains poorly understood. This is of vital importance for informing current and future pandemic response strategies. Methods We performed two independent analyses, travel network-based epidemiological modelling and Bayesian phylogeographic inference, to investigate the intercontinental spread of COVID-19. Results Both approaches revealed two distinct phases of COVID-19 spread by the end of March 2020. In the first phase, COVID-19 largely circulated in China during mid-to-late January 2020 and was interrupted by containment measures in China. In the second and predominant phase extending from late February to mid-March, unrestricted movements between countries outside of China facilitated intercontinental spread, with Europe as a major source. Phylogenetic analyses also revealed that the dominant strains circulating in the USA were introduced from Europe. However, stringent restrictions on international travel across the world since late March have substantially reduced intercontinental transmission. Conclusions Our analyses highlight that heterogeneities in international travel have shaped the spatiotemporal characteristics of the pandemic. Unrestricted travel caused a large number of COVID-19 exportations from Europe to other continents between late February and mid-March, which facilitated the COVID-19 pandemic. Targeted restrictions on international travel from countries with widespread community transmission, together with improved capacity in testing, genetic sequencing and contact tracing, can inform timely strategies for mitigating and containing ongoing and future waves of COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Kumar Singh ◽  
Martin Drews ◽  
Manuel De la Sen ◽  
Prashant Kumar Srivastava ◽  
Bambang H. Trisasongko ◽  
...  

AbstractThe new COVID-19 coronavirus disease has emerged as a global threat and not just to human health but also the global economy. Due to the pandemic, most countries affected have therefore imposed periods of full or partial lockdowns to restrict community transmission. This has had the welcome but unexpected side effect that existing levels of atmospheric pollutants, particularly in cities, have temporarily declined. As found by several authors, air quality can inherently exacerbate the risks linked to respiratory diseases, including COVID-19. In this study, we explore patterns of air pollution for ten of the most affected countries in the world, in the context of the 2020 development of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the concentrations of some of the principal atmospheric pollutants were temporarily reduced during the extensive lockdowns in the spring. Secondly, we show that the seasonality of the atmospheric pollutants is not significantly affected by these temporary changes, indicating that observed variations in COVID-19 conditions are likely to be linked to air quality. On this background, we confirm that air pollution may be a good predictor for the local and national severity of COVID-19 infections.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 539-547
Author(s):  
Meryem Allioua ◽  
Waffa Bouali ◽  
Ilham Mkedder

Food poisoning is a serious public health problem in the world that needs to be addressed as early as possible. However, mitigation efforts can be possi-ble only when data and information resulting from the implementation of monitoring or continuous surveillance are available. Here we report a study that was conducted taking into account all the data of poisoning report sheets, filled in by the doctor in charge of the case or, failing that, by the nurse, coming from health facilities (in sixteen regions in Tlemcen) were in-cluded in the analysis. For data processing, we have used some descriptive tools such as the frequencies and the lethality rates. The description of the sample concerned the characteristics of the poisoned population (year, gen-der, age, origin, hospitalisation, etc.) and the characteristics related to the suspected food. The survey showed a concentration of family focus, espe-cially in urban areas. Meats, Chickens and cream filled bakery food were the three most important incriminated foods and most of the infections in the outbreaks were related to fecal coliform, Clostridium and Staphylococcus. Some of the factors identified to contribute to food poisoning were lack of self-hygiene by food handlers and poor water and environmental supplies, poor preservation of food, the consumption of inadequately cooked or thawed meat or chicken, cross-contamination of food from infected food handlers, as well as the lack of awareness and information transmission and the lack of health infrastructures and means of communications. The present study highlights the needs for creating adequate infrastructure related to hygiene, regular epidemiological monitoring and increasing the awareness level of the residents.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Qiu

<p>This is a short article, focusing on promoting more study on SEIR modeling by leveraging rich data and machine learning. We believe that this is extremely critical as many regions at the country or state/provincial levels have been struggling with their public health intervention policies on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Some recent published papers on mitigation measures show promising SEIR modeling results, which could shred the light for other policymakers at different community levels. We present our perspective on this research direction. Hopefully, we can stimulate more studies and help the world win this “war” against the invisible enemy “coronavirus” sooner rather than later. </p>


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