Book Reviews : Public Health Paper No. 77, National Health Systems by Bogdan M. Kleczkowski, Milton I. Roemer and Albert Van Der Werff. Published by World Health Organisation, 1984. Price: SW Fr 11 Paperback. Pp 120. ISBN: 92 4 130077 9

ABSTRACTCOVID-19 epidemic is declared as the public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation in the second week of March 2020. This disease originated from China in December 2019 has already caused havoc around the world, including India. The first case in India was reported on 30th January 2020, with the cases crossing 6000 on the day paper was written. Complete lockdown of the nation for 21 days and immediate isolation of infected cases are the proactive steps taken by the authorities. For a better understanding of the evolution of COVID-19 in the country, Susceptible-Infectious-Quarantined-Recovered (SIQR) model is used in this paper. It is predicted that actual infectious population is ten times the reported positive case (quarantined) in the country. Also, a single case can infect 1.55 more individuals of the population. Epidemic doubling time is estimated to be around 4.1 days. All indicators are compared with Brazil and Italy as well. SIQR model has also predicted that India will see the peak with 22,000 active cases during the last week of April followed by reduction in active cases. It may take complete July for India to get over with COVID-19.

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The Impact of Covid-19 Public Health Policies on Persons with Disability and their Caregivers in Malta

International Journal of Social Science Research and Review ◽

10.47814/ijssrr.v4i2.88 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 25-37

Author(s):

Andrew Camilleri ◽

Samantha Pace Gasan ◽

Andrew Azzopardi

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

World Health Organisation ◽

World Health ◽

Persons With Disabilities ◽

Health Authorities ◽

Essential Services ◽

Public Health Authorities ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

Restrictive Measures ◽

The Impact

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a global health pandemic, due to the spread of a novel coronavirus, later named “Covid-19”. The spread of Covid-19 led to social isolation, distancing and a number of restrictive measures in Malta. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of Covid-19 and the subsequent restrictive measures on persons with disability and their caregivers and families in Malta. Using thematic analysis, the study found that a variety of impacts ranging from a sense of isolation, lack of essential services being provided, additional difficulties encountered at the place of work and education and measures that were not sufficiently tailored for persons with disability issued by public health authorities. Underlying the additional difficulties brought about by Covid-19, structural difficulties to access essential services as well as ignorance from policy makers and politicians and the added “vulnerable-ization” of persons with disabilities were found to be highly impacting factors that pervade the experience of persons with disabilities and their caregivers.

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COVID-19: Avoiding a second tragedy in a tuberculosis burdened country

Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease ◽

10.4081/monaldi.2020.1338 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 90 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Siddharth Raj Yadav ◽

Rohit Kumar ◽

Nitesh Gupta ◽

Pranav Ish ◽

Shibdas Chakrabarti ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Human Immunodeficiency Virus ◽

The Elderly ◽

World Health Organisation ◽

Public Health Emergency ◽

World Health ◽

Special Population ◽

Global Public Health ◽

Immunodeficiency Virus ◽

The World

To the EditorNovel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first notified in December 2019 from Wuhan, China. Now, it has spread rapidly and has been declared a pandemic affecting over 200 countries with widespread morbidity and mortality. It has been postulated that the most vulnerable population are the elderly, people living in crowded areas, children and immune-compromised individuals, such as people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The correlation of tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malnutrition are well documented and hence, people with tuberculosis should be considered as special population in this pandemic. TB is an ancient disease among humans recorded as far back as seventy thousand years which was declared a global public health emergency in 1993 by the World Health Organisation (WHO). India has the highest TB burden in the world.

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What makes health systems resilient against infectious disease outbreaks and natural hazards? Results from a scoping review

BMC Public Health ◽

10.1186/s12889-019-7707-z ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Jennifer B. Nuzzo ◽

Diane Meyer ◽

Michael Snyder ◽

Sanjana J. Ravi ◽

Ana Lapascu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Infectious Disease ◽

Health System ◽

Natural Hazards ◽

Health Systems ◽

Scoping Review ◽

Disease Outbreaks ◽

World Health ◽

Infectious Disease Outbreaks ◽

System Resilience

Abstract Background The 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak was a wake-up call regarding the critical importance of resilient health systems. Fragile health systems can become overwhelmed during public health crises, further exacerbating the human, economic, and political toll. Important work has been done to describe the general attributes of a health system resilient to these crises, and the next step will be to identify the specific capacities that health systems need to develop and maintain to achieve resiliency. Methods We conducted a scoping review of the literature to identify recurring themes and capacities needed for health system resiliency to infectious disease outbreaks and natural hazards and any existing implementation frameworks that highlight these capacities. We also sought to identify the overlap of the identified themes and capacities with those highlighted in the World Health Organization’s Joint External Evaluation. Sources of evidence included PubMed, Web of Science, OAIster, and the websites of relevant major public health organizations. Results We identified 16 themes of health system resilience, including: the need to develop plans for altered standards of care during emergencies, the need to develop plans for post-event recovery, and a commitment to quality improvement. Most of the literature described the general attributes of a resilient health system; no implementation frameworks were identified that could translate these elements into specific capacities that health system actors can employ to improve resilience to outbreaks and natural hazards in a variety of settings. Conclusions An implementation-oriented health system resilience framework could help translate the important components of a health system identified in this review into specific capacities that actors in the health system could work to develop to improve resilience to public health crises. However, there remains a need to further refine the concept of resilience so that health systems can simultaneously achieve sustainable transformations in healthcare practice and health service delivery as well as improve their preparedness for emergencies.

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Max Wilson and the Principles and Practice of Screening for Disease

International Journal of Neonatal Screening ◽

10.3390/ijns6010015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 15

Author(s):

Kate Hall

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

International Society ◽

Neonatal Screening ◽

World Health Organisation ◽

Population Screening ◽

World Health ◽

The World ◽

The Hague ◽

Opening Session

The name Wilson will be forever associated with co-author Jungner and ten principles of population screening published in 1968 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as Public Health Papers No 34. These principles have since been used, modified or extended throughout much of Europe and beyond. Very little was known about Dr. J.M.G. Wilson and his life and how he came to write this monograph until the Silver Jubilee meeting of the International Society for Neonatal Screening held in The Hague in 2016. The opening session was chosen to be ‘The Wilson and Jungner criteria for screening for disease’.

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