scholarly journals The Politics of Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution and Recognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Adil Ashraf ◽  
Ameer Muhammad ◽  
Yasir Shafiq
Keyword(s):  
Vaccine Distribution

With COVAX touted as the only platform that is built on equity and fairness, there is growing discontent and concern that the platform is falling short of its goals as COVID ravages across multiple countries. There are two serious issues that we address here. Firstly, COVID distribution principles and mechanisms need to be rethought in terms of a shift from private to global interests with a focus on prioritizing deliveries. Secondly, with multiple vaccines present, it is vital that countries recognize all of them, once proven safe and effective, to prevent any form of vaccine apartheid and discrimination.

scholarly journals Mapping the inequality of the global distribution of seasonal influenza vaccine

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2199835
Author(s):  
Yen Ching Yau ◽  
Michael T Gastner
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Vaccine ◽  
Respiratory Diseases ◽  
Seasonal Influenza ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Essential Medicines ◽  
World Health ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Seasonal Influenza Vaccine ◽  
Choropleth Map ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

With an estimated annual worldwide death toll of between 290 000 and 650 000, seasonal influenza remains one of the deadliest respiratory diseases. Influenza vaccines provide moderate to high protection and have been on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines since 1979. Approximately 490 million doses of influenza vaccine are produced per year, but an investigation of geographic allocation reveals enormous disparities. Here, we present two maps that visualise the inequality of the distribution across 195 countries: a conventional choropleth map and a cartogram. In combination, these two maps highlight the widespread lack of coverage in Africa and many parts of Asia. As COVID-19 vaccines are now being distributed in developed countries, data for seasonal influenza vaccine distribution emphasises the need for policymakers to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.

scholarly journals Actionable lessons for the US COVID vaccine program

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary L. Freed
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Local Health ◽  
National Strategy ◽  
Individual State ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
Local Health Departments ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

AbstractWhen attempting to provide lessons for other countries from the successful Israeli COVID-19 vaccine experience, it is important to distinguish between the modifiable and non-modifiable components identified in the article by Rosen, et al. Two specific modifiable components included in the Israeli program from which the US can learn are (a) a national (not individual state-based) strategy for vaccine distribution and administration and (b) a functioning public health infrastructure. As a federal government, the US maintains an often complex web of state and national authorities and responsibilities. The federal government assumed responsibility for the ordering, payment and procurement of COVID vaccine from manufacturers. In designing the subsequent steps in their COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration plan, the Trump administration decided to rely on the states themselves to determine how best to implement guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This strategy resulted in 50 different plans and 50 different systems for the dissemination of vaccine doses, all at the level of each individual state. State health departments were neither financed, experienced nor uniformly possessed the expertise to develop and implement such plans. A national strategy for the distribution, and the workforce for the provision, of vaccine beyond the state level, similar to that which occurred in Israel, would have provided for greater efficiency and coordination across the country. The US public health infrastructure was ill-prepared and ill-staffed to take on the responsibility to deliver > 450 million doses of vaccine in an expeditious fashion, even if supply of vaccine was available. The failure to adequately invest in public health has been ubiquitous across the nation at all levels of government. Since the 2008 recession, state and local health departments have lost > 38,000 jobs and spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%. Hopefully, COVID-19 will be a wakeup call to the US with regard to the need for both a national strategy to address public health emergencies and the well-maintained infrastructure to make it happen.

scholarly journals In Silico Screening of Natural Products Isolated from Mexican Herbal Medicines against COVID-19

Biomolecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 216
Author(s):  
Nadia A. Rivero-Segura ◽  
Juan C. Gomez-Verjan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Products ◽  
In Silico ◽  
Herbal Medicines ◽  
In Silico Screening ◽  
Docking Analysis ◽  
Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Emodin Anthrone ◽  
Therapeutic Tools ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

The COVID-19 pandemic has already taken the lives of more than 2 million people worldwide, causing several political and socio-economic disturbances in our daily life. At the time of publication, there are non-effective pharmacological treatments, and vaccine distribution represents an important challenge for all countries. In this sense, research for novel molecules becomes essential to develop treatments against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this context, Mexican natural products have proven to be quite useful for drug development; therefore, in the present study, we perform an in silico screening of 100 compounds isolated from the most commonly used Mexican plants, against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As results, we identify ten compounds that meet leadlikeness criteria (emodin anthrone, kaempferol, quercetin, aesculin, cichoriin, luteolin, matricin, riolozatrione, monocaffeoyl tartaric acid, aucubin). According to the docking analysis, only three compounds target the key proteins of SARS-CoV-2 (quercetin, riolozatrione and cichoriin), but only one appears to be safe (cichoriin). ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) properties and the physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model show that cichoriin reaches higher lung levels (100 mg/Kg, IV); therefore, it may be considered in developing therapeutic tools.

scholarly journals The Use of GIS Technology to Optimize COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution: A Case Study of the City of Warsaw, Poland

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 5636
Author(s):  
Sylwia Krzysztofowicz ◽  
Katarzyna Osińska-Skotak
Keyword(s):  
Herd Immunity ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Population Group ◽  
Gis Technology ◽  
Vaccination Site ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Vaccine Distribution ◽  
The City

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global challenge, and the key to tackling it is vaccinating a specified percentage of the population to acquire herd immunity. The observed problems with the efficiency of the vaccination campaigns in numerous countries around the world, as well as the approach used at the initial stage of the National Immunization Program in Poland, prompted us to analyse the possibility of using GIS technology to optimize the distribution of vaccines to vaccination sites so as to minimize the period needed to vaccinate individual population groups. The research work was carried out on the example of Warsaw, the capital of Poland and the city with the largest population in the country. The analyses were carried out for the 60–70 and 50–60 age groups, in various approaches and for vaccines of different companies (Moderna, BioNTech, AstraZeneca), used to vaccinate people in Poland. The proposed approach to optimize vaccine distribution uses Thiessen’s tessellation to obtain information on the number of people in a given population group living in the area of each vaccination site, and then to estimate the time needed to vaccinate that group. Compared to the originally used vaccination scenario with limited availability of vaccines, the proposed approach allows practitioners to design fast and efficient distribution scenarios. With the developed methodology, we demonstrated ways to achieve uniform vaccination coverage throughout the city. We anticipate that the proposed approach can be easily automated and broadly applied to various urban settings.

scholarly journals IoT and Deep Learning Based Approach for Rapid Screening and Face Mask Detection for Infection Spread Control of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3495
Author(s):  
Shabir Hussain ◽  
Yang Yu ◽  
Muhammad Ayoub ◽  
Akmal Khan ◽  
Rukhshanda Rehman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Face Mask ◽  
World Health ◽  
Rapid Screening ◽  
Screening System ◽  
Source Of Infection ◽  
The Face ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

The spread of COVID-19 has been taken on pandemic magnitudes and has already spread over 200 countries in a few months. In this time of emergency of COVID-19, especially when there is still a need to follow the precautions and developed vaccines are not available to all the developing countries in the first phase of vaccine distribution, the virus is spreading rapidly through direct and indirect contacts. The World Health Organization (WHO) provides the standard recommendations on preventing the spread of COVID-19 and the importance of face masks for protection from the virus. The excessive use of manual disinfection systems has also become a source of infection. That is why this research aims to design and develop a low-cost, rapid, scalable, and effective virus spread control and screening system to minimize the chances and risk of spread of COVID-19. We proposed an IoT-based Smart Screening and Disinfection Walkthrough Gate (SSDWG) for all public places entrance. The SSDWG is designed to do rapid screening, including temperature measuring using a contact-free sensor and storing the record of the suspected individual for further control and monitoring. Our proposed IoT-based screening system also implemented real-time deep learning models for face mask detection and classification. This module classified individuals who wear the face mask properly, improperly, and without a face mask using VGG-16, MobileNetV2, Inception v3, ResNet-50, and CNN using a transfer learning approach. We achieved the highest accuracy of 99.81% while using VGG-16 and the second highest accuracy of 99.6% using MobileNetV2 in the mask detection and classification module. We also implemented classification to classify the types of face masks worn by the individuals, either N-95 or surgical masks. We also compared the results of our proposed system with state-of-the-art methods, and we highly suggested that our system could be used to prevent the spread of local transmission and reduce the chances of human carriers of COVID-19.

VaCoChain: Blockchain-based 5G-assisted UAV Vaccine distribution scheme for future pandemics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Ashwin Verma ◽  
Pronaya Bhattacharya ◽  
Mohammad Zuhair ◽  
Sudeep Tanwar ◽  
Neeraj Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Distribution Scheme ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

An Intelligent Vaccine Distribution Process in COVID-19 Pandemic through Blockchain-SDN Framework from Bangladesh Perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anichur Rahman ◽  
Md. Jahidul Islam ◽  
Md Razaul Karim ◽  
Dipanjali Kundu ◽  
Sumaiya Kabir
Keyword(s):  
Distribution Process ◽  
Vaccine Distribution

scholarly journals Coronavirus disease 2019: an overview

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 5094
Author(s):  
Ajna Prahalad ◽  
Varun Soti
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Literature Search ◽  
Spike Protein ◽  
Cytokine Storm ◽  
Converting Enzyme ◽  
Medical Subject Headings ◽  
Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 ◽  
Different Strains ◽  
Vaccine Distribution ◽  
Good Hygiene

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused over four million deaths worldwide and continues to affect millions across the globe. This review aims to provide an overview of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the progress made to counter COVID-19 through therapeutics and immunizations. We searched preclinical and clinical COVID-19 literature published between January 2018 through June 2021 on PubMed. The medical subject headings used in the literature search were COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Treatment, Remdesivir, Cytokine Storm, Hydroxychloroquine, Epidemiology, Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 Receptor, Vaccines, and Mitigation. There is credible evidence that shows that the spike protein in the SARS-CoV-2’s structure is crucial for the host to be infected. It spreads through different modes, primarily through aerosols and carriers. Pathophysiologically, SARS-CoV-2 triggers a cytokine storm leading to systemic inflammation, which can be fatal. Although treatment with Remdesivir and Dexamethasone and massive vaccinations have significantly reduced the mortality rate, COVID-19 remains a significant threat. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2’s different strains, notably the Delta variant, demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. More vaccine distribution and increased efforts in developing anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs, social distancing, masking, and practicing good hygiene will be crucial in defeating COVID-19.

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