Health improvement of the elderly in five Central Asian countries during COVID-19 based on difference game
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Bai Y
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10697614 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to map vulnerability of Asian countries to the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodAccording to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 framework for natural hazards, vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. From an extensive literature review, we identified 16 socioeconomic, meteorological, environmental, and health factors that influence coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths. The underlying factors of vulnerability were identified using principal component analysis.ResultsOur findings indicate that the percentage of the urban population, obesity rate, air connectivity, and the population aged 65 and over, diabetes prevalence, and PM2.5 levels all contributed significantly to COVID-19 sensitivity. Subsequently, governance effectiveness, human development index (HDI), vaccination rate, and life expectancy at birth, and gross domestic product (GDP) all had a positive effect on adaptive capacity. The estimated vulnerability was corroborated by a Pearson correlation of 0.615 between death per million population and vulnerability.ConclusionThis study demonstrates the application of universal indicators for assessing pandemic vulnerability for informed policy interventions such as the COVAX vaccine roll-out priority. Despite data limitations and a lack of spatiotemporal analysis, this study's methodological framework allows for ample data incorporation and replication.
| S-EPMC9273770 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background In the pandemic time, many low- and middle-income countries are experiencing restricted access to COVID-19 vaccines. An access to imported vaccines or ways to produce them locally becomes the principal source of hope. But developing a strategy for success in obtaining and allocating vaccines is not easy task. The governments in those countries have faced difficult decision whether to accept or reject offers of vaccine diplomacy, weighing price and availability of COVID-19 vaccines against concerns over their efficacy and safety. Our aim was to analyze public opinion regarding the governmental strategies to obtain COVID-19 vaccines in three Central Asian countries, focusing particularly on possible ethical issues. Methods We searched opinions expressed either in Russian or in the respective national languages. We provided data of the debate within three countries, drawn from social media postings and other sources. The opinion data was not restricted by source and time. This allowed to collect a wide range of possible opinions that could be expressed regarding COVID-19 vaccine supply and public's participation in vaccine trials. We recognized ethical issues and possible questions concerning different ethical frameworks. We also considered additional information or scientific data, in the process of reasoning. Results As a result, public views on their respective government policies on COVID-19 vaccine supply ranged from strongly negative to slightly positive. We extracted most important issues from public debates, for our analysis. The first issue involved trade-offs between quantity, speed, price, freedom, efficacy and safety in the vaccines. The second set of issues arouse in connection with the request to site a randomized trial in one of countries (Uzbekistan). After considering additional evidences, we weighed individual with public risks and benefits to make specific judgements concerning every issue. Conclusions We believe that our analysis would be a helpful example of solving ethical issues that can rise concerning COVID-19 vaccine supply round the world. The public view can be highly critical, helping to spot such issues. An ignoring this view can lead to major problems, which in turn, can become a serious obstacle for the vaccine coverage and epidemics' control in the countries and regions.
| S-EPMC8328076 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundIn the pandemic time, many low- and middle-income countries are experiencing restricted access to COVID-19 vaccines. Access to imported vaccines or ways to produce them locally became the principal source of hope for these countries. But developing a strategy for success in obtaining and allocating vaccines was not easy task. The governments in those countries have faced the difficult decision whether to accept or reject offers of vaccine diplomacy, weighing the price and availability of COVID-19 vaccines against the concerns over their efficacy and safety. We aimed to analyze public opinion regarding the governmental strategies to obtain COVID-19 vaccines in three Central Asian countries, focusing particularly on possible ethical issues.MethodsWe searched for opinions expressed either in Russian or in the respective national languages. We provided data on the debate within three countries, drawn from social media postings and other sources. The opinion data was not restricted by source and time. This allowed collecting a wide range of possible opinions that could be expressed regarding COVID-19 vaccine supply and human participation in the vaccine trial. We recognized ethical issues and possible questions concerning different ethical frameworks. We also considered scientific data and other information, in the process of reasoning.ResultsAs a result, public views on their respective government policies on COVID-19 vaccine supply ranged from strongly negative to slightly positive. We extracted the most important issues from public debates, for our analysis. The first issue involved trade-offs between quantity, speed, price, freedom, efficacy, and safety in the vaccines. The second set of issues arose in connection with the request to site a randomized trial in one of the countries (Uzbekistan). After considering additional evidence, we weighed individual and public risks against the benefits to make specific judgements concerning every issue.ConclusionsWe believe that our analysis would be a helpful example of solving ethical issues that can arise concerning COVID-19 vaccine supply around the world. The public view can be highly critical, helping to spot such issues. An ignoring this view can lead to major problems, which in turn, can become a serious obstacle for the vaccine coverage and epidemics' control in the countries and regions.
| S-EPMC8906360 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background: The purpose of the study was to compare trends in the progression of COVID-19 among South Asian countries with more developed Western countries. Methods: COVID-19 data from South Asian countries were used for this observational study. Data were taken up to April 21, 2020 from the outbreak of the COVID-19. Four of the seven countries met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. Results: An exponential increase in the average number of weekly cases was reported after the fifth week following the first case. The correlation between reported cases and tests was found to be strong and significant (r=0.90, p=0.037). However, on average, 315.25 tests per million population were performed, which was at least 12 times lower than the number of tests performed in countries with a large number of COVID-19 cases. Conclusions: At present, the number of confirmed cases from South Asia was found to be significantly lower than in Western countries. Hence, an increase in the strength of performing diagnostic tests is highly recommended. Strict measures are required to make the people of these countries follow the instructions of social distancing and comply with preventive measures.
| S-EPMC7905493 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundCOVID-19 reached Latin-American countries slightly later than European countries, around February/March, allowing some emergency preparedness response in countries characterized by low health system capacities and socioeconomic disparities.ObjectiveThis paper focuses on the first months of the pandemic in five Latin American countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It analyses how the pre-pandemic context, and the government's responses to contain and mitigate the spread together with economic measures have affected the COVID-19 health outcomes.MethodsExtensive qualitative document analysis was conducted focused on publicly-available epidemiological data and federal and state/regional policy documents since the beginning of the pandemic.ResultsThe countries were quick to implement stringent COVID-19 measures and incrementally scaled up their health systems capacity, although tracing and tracking have been poor. All five countries have experienced a large number of cases and deaths due to COVID-19. The analysis on the excess deaths also shows that the impact in deaths is far higher than the official numbers reported to date for some countries.ConclusionDespite the introduction of stringent measures of containment and mitigation, and the scale up of health system capacities, pre-pandemic conditions that characterize these countries (high informal employment, and social inequalities) have undermined the effectiveness of the countries' responses to the pandemic. The economic support measures put in place were found to be too timid for some countries and introduced too late in most of them. Additionally, the lack of a comprehensive strategy for testing and tracking has also contributed to the failure to contain the spread of the virus.
| S-EPMC7451099 | biostudies-literature
Project description:During the COVID-19 pandemic, many rumors and conspiracy theories spread in various media outlets. The purpose of this study is to reveal the nature of the misinformation detected by fact check platforms that spread in the Fragile Five countries. To determine the themes of misinformation about COVID-19 and from which media it is disseminated are a possible way to prevent it. The data of the study were obtained from International Fact-checking Network's CoronaVirusFacts database. One thousand seven hundred thirty-four piece of misinformation collected by web scraping method during the period January 24, 2020 to November 14, 2020 and analyzed with MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. As a result of the research, it was found that rumors (96.3%) spread more in the Fragile Five countries than conspiracy theories (3.7%). While the main theme of the rumors is about illness (26.9%) and diagnosis-treatment (25%), conspiracy theories are mostly related to the cause of the disease (68.8%). 53.06% of misinformation was spread through the Facebook platform. 15.32% on Twitter; 13.34% on WhatsApp. Misinformation has been heavily false (85.12%) in both rumor and conspiracy theories. In the second place, misleading (10.09%) news spread.
| S-EPMC9878246 | biostudies-literature
Project description:COVID-19 vaccination rates for children globally are relatively low. This study aimed to investigate parental vaccine hesitancy and parents' acceptance of a COVID-19 for their children for their children in the United States, China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.We analyzed data from an opt-in, internet-based cross-sectional study (n = 23,940). Parents were asked about their acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine for their children, and if they would accept the vaccine with different risk and effectiveness profiles for themselves. Poisson regression was used to generate prevalence ratios (PR) of the relationship between vaccine acceptance for a child and vaccine profile, by country and waves and overall. Between August 2020 and June 2021, COVID-19 vaccine acceptance for children decreased in the United States (89% to 72%) and Taiwan (79% to 71%), increased in India (91% to 96%) and Malaysia (81% to 91%), and was stable in Indonesia (86%) and China (at 87%-90%). Vaccine risk and effectiveness profiles did not consistently affect parent's acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine for their children. Instead, being not hesitant was a large driver of vaccine acceptance (PR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.14, 1.36). Adolescent COVID-19 vaccination have already been established in many high and middle-income countries, but our study suggests that there is a movement of vaccine hesitancy which could impede the success of future pediatric and adolescent COVID-19 vaccination programs.
| S-EPMC10901326 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Amongst the most robust consensus related to the COVID-19 disease is that the elderly are by far the most vulnerable population group. Hence, public authorities target older people in order to convince them to comply with preventive measures. However, we still know little about older people's attitudes and compliance toward these measures. In this research, I aim to improve our understanding of elderly people's responses to the pandemic using data from 27 countries. Results are surprising and quite troubling. Elderly people's response is substantially similar to their fellow citizens in their 50's and 60's. This research (i) provides the first thorough description of the most vulnerable population's attitudes and compliance in a comparative perspective (ii) suggest that governments' strategies toward elderly people are far from successful and (iii) shows that methodologically, we should be more cautious in treating age as having a linear effect on COVID-19 related outcomes.
| S-EPMC7332014 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionThere was a low level of pandemic preparedness in South Asia, but the region has done well in mounting an appropriate response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The rate and proportion of deaths attributed to COVID-19 are lower despite case surges similar to the rest of the world.ResultsThe COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the glaring vulnerabilities of the health system. In addition, the high burden of non-communicable diseases in South Asia multiplies the complexities in combating present and future health crises. The advantage offered by the younger population demographics in South Asia may not be sustained with the rising burden of non-communicable diseases and lack of priority setting for improving health systems.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic has provided a window for introspection, scaling up preparedness for future pandemics, and improving the health of the population overall.
| S-EPMC7836380 | biostudies-literature
Project description:SARS-Cov-2 infection is frequently associated with Nervous System (NS) manifestations. However, it is not clear how SARS-CoV-2 can cause neurological dysfunctions and which molecular processes affects. In this work, we examined the frontal cortex tissue of patients who died of COVID-19 for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, comparing qRT-PCR with ddPCR. We also investigated the transcriptomic profile of frontal cortex from COVID-19 patients and matched controls by RNA-seq analysis to characterize the transcriptional signature.
2021-03-09 | GSE164332 | GEO