scholarly journals RESPONSES TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: A SCENARIO OF BANGLADESH

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-262
Author(s):  
Popy Devnath ◽  
◽  
Imam Hossain ◽  
Mohammad Sharif Uddin ◽  
Md Hasibul Hossain ◽  
...  

Emerging at the end of 2019 in China, novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infected millions and killed thousands of people across the globe. Like other South Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, Bangladesh is also struggling to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the first detection on March 2020, terrible touch of the corona had been inundated Bangladesh with a total of 5,661,926 suspected patients and reported 776,257 (13.7%) cases, 12,005 deaths (1.5% CFR), and an overall recovery of 715,321 (92%) cases as of May 11, 2020. In attempts to reduce the burden of corona cases in one of the most densely populated country of the world, the government has taken several initiatives. Bangladesh has been stepped up a large number of medical & testing facilities, manpower, social awareness campaigns, and has taken many initial steps to fight against COVID-19. This review article is focused on the overall outbreak situation, the preparedness of the government of Bangladesh as well as challenges and limitations faced by the country so far to tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic 2019.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Brijesh Sathian ◽  
Mohammad Asim ◽  
Ahammed Mekkodathil ◽  
Edwin R. Van Teijlingen ◽  
Supram Hosuru Subramanya ◽  
...  

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by the pathogenic severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, is exponentially spreading across the globe. As there is paucity of published literature, the influence of COVID-19 on community health remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to conduct a systematic review of the literature on the impact of COVID-19 on community health. The current systematic review was performed utilizing electronic databases, i.e., PubMed, MEDLINE, and EMBASE. We searched for the keywords "COVID-19" AND "community health" between January 1, 2020, until May 10, 2020. Although, limited evidence is available regarding quarantine to prevent COVID‐19, most studies considered quarantine as an essential public health measure to minimize rate of infection and mortality. Under these circumstances, people should focus on maintaining personal hygiene, proper nutrition, and extreme social distancing to reduce the risk of COVID-19. Besides, that there is a need to provide professional psychological support to reduce mental ill-health. We have highlighted two different public health approaches in South Asian countries, namely Nepal and India.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
Kiran Paudel ◽  
Prashamsa Bhandari ◽  
Yadav Prasad Joshi

The Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is currently a major threat to global health in an unprecedented manner. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has affected 215 countries and territories including Nepal. Until 1st June 2020, altogether 1,811 COVID-19 positive cases were diagnosed using RT-PCR. This study aimed to analyze the status of COVID-19 cases in Nepal and South Asian countries. A retrospective study from 23rd January to 1st June 2020 was conducted using data of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Nepal and Worldometer homepages. The primary case records during the pre and post lockdown periods were examined. Spatial distribution was observed. An exponential trend line was plotted and COVID-19 situation in South Asian countries was assessed. Of 1,811 COVID-19 cases, the highest number (38.3%) was reported in Province 2. Out of 77 districts, 59 were affected. In Fifty-eight districts, primary cases appeared during the lockdown period. The cumulative number of COVID-19 cases showed the exponential pattern of distribution in Nepal. In South Asian countries, India had the highest number of cases and case fatality rate (CFR). There were no cases of CFR in Bhutan. The Novel Coronavirus emergence in Nepal has become a serious challenge to the various sectors including public health. The emergence of primary cases even in the lockdown period needs a detailed study in the future.


An infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 has raged across the world since December 2019. The novel coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread to Asia and now many countries around the world are affected by the epidemic. The deaths of many patients, including medical staff, caused social panic, media attention, and high attention from governments and world organizations. Today, with the joint efforts of the government, the doctors and all walks of life, the epidemic in Hubei Province has been brought under control, preventing its spread from affecting the lives of the people. Because of its rapid spread and serious consequences, this sudden novel coronary pneumonia epidemic has become an important social hot spot event. Through the analysis of the novel coronary pneumonia epidemic situation, we can also have a better understanding of sudden infectious diseases in the future, so that we can take more effective response measures, establish a truly predictable and provide reliable and sufficient information for prevention and control model.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-11
Author(s):  
Bin Zhao

Background: An infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus called COVID-19 has raged across the world since December 2019. The novel coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread to Asia and now many countries around the world are affected by the epidemic. The deaths of many patients, including medical staff, caused social panic, media attention, and high attention from governments and world organizations. Today, with the joint efforts of the government, the doctors and all walks of life, the epidemic in Hubei Province has been brought under control, preventing its spread from affecting the lives of the people. Because of its rapid spread and serious consequences, this sudden novel coronary pneumonia epidemic has become an important social hot spot event. Through the analysis of the novel coronary pneumonia epidemic situation, we can also have a better understanding of sudden infectious diseases in the future, so that we can take more effective response measures, establish a truly predictable and provide reliable and sufficient information for prevention and control model. Methods: We establish different models according to the different developments of the epidemic situation, different time points, and different response measures taken by the government. To be specific, during the period of 2020.1.23-2020.2.7, the traditional SIR model is adopted; during the period of 2020.2.8-2020.3.30, according to the scientific research results, it was considered that the novel coronary pneumonia has a latent period, so in the later phase of epidemic development, the government has effectively isolated patients, thus we adopt the SEIQR model accordingly. During the period of 2020.3.31-2020.5.16, because more asymptomatic infected people were found, we use the SEIQLR model to fit. Finally, through a SEIR simulator, considering the susceptible number, the latent number, the infected number, the cured number, death number and other factors, we simulate the change of various numbers of people from the beginning to the next 180 days of novel coronary pneumonia. Findings: The results based on the analysis of differential equations and kinetic models show that through the prediction of the model established in the first phase, the epidemic situation of novel coronary pneumonia in Hubei Province was controlled at the end of March, which is in line with the actual situation. The rest of Hubei province, except for Wuhan, lifted control of the departure channel from 0:00 am on March 25, and Wuhan was also unblocked on April 8. Through the establishment of the second-phase model, it is found that the epidemic situation will reach its peak in mid-February. For example, the quarantine admission of the hospital declined after mid-February, which is inseparable from the measures to build square cabin hospitals in early February so that more and more patients can be admitted. The model established in the third phase shows that the epidemic had been completely controlled by the end of May, which is also in line with the reality. Because in mid-May, the Wuhan government conducted a nucleic acid test on all the citizens to screen for asymptomatic infected persons to fundamentally control the spread of novel coronary pneumonia. Interpretation: Hubei Province, as the center of the initial outbreak of novel coronary pneumonia, people were forced to be isolated at home during the Spring Festival, the most important Chinese holiday, and the whole society was in a state of suspension of work and study. The Chinese government had taken many measures in response to the epidemic, such as shutting down the city, vigorously building square cabin hospitals, and prohibiting people from gathering. At the beginning of May this year, the epidemic in Hubei Province was finally effectively controlled. For ordinary citizens, we should not cause unnecessary panic about the unknown novel coronavirus. Instead, we should fully understand and be familiar with this virus. In addition to the relevant medical knowledge, we should also understand the spread of infectious diseases through appropriate mathematical models. By mathematical models, we can understand the degree of harm of infectious diseases, when to control it, how to stop it, and use scientific views to reveal the original face of the novel coronavirus to the public without causing social panic.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ranajoy Mallik ◽  
Amlan Protim Hazarika ◽  
Sudarshana Ghosh ◽  
Dilip Sing ◽  
Rajib Bandyopadhyay

Abstract The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19 as pandemic across the world. With its alarming surge of affected cases throughout the world, lockdown and awareness (social distancing, use of masks etc) among people are found to be the only means for restricting the community transmission. In a densely populated country like India, it is very difficult to prevent the community transmission even during lockdown without social awareness and precautionary measures taken by the people. Recently, several containment zones had been identified throughout the country and divided into red, orange and green zones, respectively. The red zones indicate the infection hotspots, orange zones denote some infection and green zones indicate an area with no infection.This paper mainly focuses on development of an Android application which can inform people of the COVID-19 containment zones and prevent trespassing into these zones. This Android application updates the locations of the areas in a Google map which are identified to be the containment zones. The application also notifies the users if they have entered a containment zone and uploads the user’s IMEI number to the online database. With this IMEI number, the police can keep an eye on the people who are frequently violating the lockdown rules. To achieve all these functionalities, many tools and APIs from Google like Firebase and Geofence are used in this app. Therefore, this application can be used as a tool for creating further social awareness about the arising need of precautionary measures to be taken by the people of India.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richmond Sam Quarm ◽  
Rosemond Sam-Quarm ◽  
Richmond Sam-Quarm

The novel, dreaded, disruptive, and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic took the world by storm in January, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana is part of the worldwide coronavirus disease caused by “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2)”. On 12th January, 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on 31st December, 2019. On 11th March, 2020, WHO declared the novel Covid-19 a global pandemic (Graphic Online, 2020a). It is worthy to note how the Government of Ghana, political parties, citizens, scientists and academia, corporate entities, faith based organisations, traditional rulers, have offered varied forms of interventions to combat the scourge. The Theoretical Framework of this research was underpinned by the Theory of Epidemics, the Agency Theory, the Rational Choice Theory, and the Stakeholder Theory. We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 250 respondents. We also employed face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires (Braun and Clarke, 2012; Denzin, 2017), which were administered online through email application via Google Forms. One of our major findings was that with the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by the UK’s MHRA on 1st December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020b); and subsequently by the US FDA a week later on 8th December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020c), all governments around the globe in general, but Africa in particular, must make conscious efforts backed by adequate budgetary allocations to secure maximum quantities of the vaccines for their vulnerable teeming population.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richmond Sam Quarm ◽  
Rosemond Sam-Quarm ◽  
Richmond Sam-Quarm

The novel, dreaded, disruptive, and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic took the world by storm in January, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana is part of the worldwide coronavirus disease caused by “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2)”. On 12th January, 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on 31st December, 2019. On 11th March, 2020, WHO declared the novel Covid-19 a global pandemic (Graphic Online, 2020a). It is worthy to note how the Government of Ghana, political parties, citizens, scientists and academia, corporate entities, faith based organisations, traditional rulers, have offered varied forms of interventions to combat the scourge. The Theoretical Framework of this research was underpinned by the Theory of Epidemics, the Agency Theory, the Rational Choice Theory, and the Stakeholder Theory. We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 250 respondents. We also employed face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires (Braun and Clarke, 2012; Denzin, 2017), which were administered online through email application via Google Forms. One of our major findings was that with the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by the UK’s MHRA on 1st December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020b); and subsequently by the US FDA a week later on 8th December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020c), all governments around the globe in general, but Africa in particular, must make conscious efforts backed by adequate budgetary allocations to secure maximum quantities of the vaccines for their vulnerable teeming population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Bahtiyar Efe

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (hereafter COVID-19) has changed the daily routines of people around the world. The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in December 2019, whilst it was confirmed on 11 March 2020 in Turkey. After the number of cases reached 4500 per day by 10 April, the government declared more restrictive lockdown measures for 31 metropolitan cities, which were implemented for the following weekends and national and religious holidays. The changes in the concentrations of CO, NOx, NO2 and PM10 during the period of these measures with respect to the pre-lockdown period and for different levels of measures for Samsun, the biggest city of the Karadeniz region, were investigated in this study. The daily mean concentrations of CO, NOx, NO2 and PM10 were obtained from Tekkekoy station due to it having data completeness greater than 95% for all pollutants. The average CO, NOx and NO2 concentrations during the lockdown period declined with respect to the pre-lockdown period, whilst PM10 increased by 3%. The average concentrations of all the pollutants decreased when the level of restrictions increased during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The number of days exceeding the WHO limit for PM10 was decreased during the lockdown period to 16 days with respect to the pre-lockdown period at 19 days. There was only a positive weak relationship between the mobility decrease rate and NO2 concentrations.


Author(s):  
Md. Riajul Islam Sardar ◽  
Md. Shamim Hasan ◽  
Md. Mahmud

Since the first coronavirus patient was identified in Bangladesh on March 8, the most controversial issue is about the exact level of the infection in Bangladesh. Conformity with the population density the number of COVID-19 tests is inadequate. As the number of tests increases, so does the number of infections, making it difficult to predict the spread of COVID-19 in Bangladesh. In this case, the unplanned initiatives are particularly responsible in other for unplanned measures, lack of public awareness, and lack of proper knowledge. In this case, the Ministry of Health has made three major mistakes, three important features of the medical system in Bangladesh have been mentioned. It is more effective to prevent COVID-19 by isolating the infected person by further testing COVID-19 until effective treatment is available and to provide adequate and effective masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). In this case, the COVID-19 testing kit invention has received a good response in many countries of the world. This study focuses on the comprehensive data verification, selection, and evaluation of COVID-19 in Bangladesh and its implications for the future, what to do to address and prevent the COVID-19 challenge, and effective treatment against the coronavirus (COVID-19). It is hopeful that the discussion of the material mentioned in this research paper will help to strike a balance between the government, citizens, and experts which will be feasible in improving the current situation in COVID-19 Bangladesh and reducing its severity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 6001-6008
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdullateef ◽  
◽  
Beatrice Okonkwo ◽  

As the world battles the novel Coronavirus pandemic ravaging lives and destroying economies, many nations have entrusted the detection, handling and management of confirmed coronavirus cases to their leading public health institutions. For Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), charged with the said responsibility, faces a worrisome myriad of backlash from citizens' who regard their daily update of confirmed cases as misleading. In this survey, the researchers purposively study this category of sceptic individuals to understand their level of awareness of the virus and their perceptions about the government agency, to determine the factors responsible for the lack of confidence in the reportage, and how their confidence level may be boosted. The study adopted a mixed-method to recruit some 425 respondents that fit the profile of 'those who lack confidence in the NCDC daily reports'. Findings revealed that even the aware, educated, and high-income Nigerians equally constitute those with misperceptions and scepticism about the NCDC. Key reasons for the distrust include inconsistent reporting, secrecy about patients' database, and perceived corruption tendencies. Recommendations based on the findings call for increased openness and access to compelling information about activities to curtail the infection, especially transparency in treatment and budget spending.


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