Strategies to control COVID-19 and future pandemics in Africa and around the globe.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Fanidi A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7184329 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Strategies to control COVID-19 and future pandemics in Africa and around the globe.
Fanidi Anouar A Jouven Xavier X Gaye Bamba B
European heart journal 20201101 41
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Project description:This paper reports a Scopus-based systematic literature review of a wide variety of transportation policies and mitigation strategies that have been conducted around the world to minimize COVID-19 contagion risk in transportation systems. The review offers a representative coverage of countries across all continents of the planet, as well as among representative climate regions - as weather is an important factor to consider. The readership interested in policies and mitigation strategies is expected to involve a wide range of actors, each involving a particular application context; hence, the literature is also characterized by key attributes such as: transportation mode; actor (users, operators, government, industry); jurisdiction (national, provincial, city, neighborhood); and area of application (planning, regulation, operations, research, incentives). An in-depth analysis of the surveyed literature is then reported, focusing first on condensing the literature into 151 distinct policies and strategies, which are subsequently categorized into 25 broad categories that are discussed at length. The compendium and discussion of strategies and policies reported not only provide comprehensive guidelines to inform various courses of action for decision-makers, planners, and social communicators, but also emphasize on future work and the potential of some of these strategies to be the precursors of meaningful, more sustainable behavioral changes in future mobility patterns.
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Project description:Globally, countries have used diverse methods to report data during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using international guidelines and principles of emergency management, we compare national data reporting systems in African countries in order to determine lessons for future pandemics. We analyse COVID-19 reporting practices across 54 African countries through 2020. Reporting systems were diverse and included summaries, press releases, situation reports and online dashboards. These systems were communicated via social media accounts and websites belonging to ministries of health and public health. Data variables from the reports included event detection (cases/deaths/recoveries), risk assessment (demographics/co-morbidities) and response (total tests/hospitalisations). Of countries with reporting systems, 36/53 (67.9%) had recurrent situation reports and/or online dashboards which provided more extensive data. All of these systems reported cases, deaths and recoveries. However, few systems contained risk assessment and response data, with only 5/36 (13.9%) reporting patient co-morbidities and 9/36 (25%) including total hospitalisations. Further evaluation of reporting practices in Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa as examples from different sub-regions revealed differences in reporting healthcare capacity and preparedness data. Improving the standardisation and accessibility of national data reporting systems could augment research and decision-making, as well as increase public awareness and transparency for national governments.
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Project description:Researchers and policymakers have proposed systems to detect novel pathogens earlier than existing surveillance systems by monitoring samples from hospital patients, wastewater, and air travel, in order to mitigate future pandemics. How much benefit would such systems offer? We developed, empirically validated, and mathematically characterized a quantitative model that simulates disease spread and detection time for any given disease and detection system. We find that hospital monitoring could have detected COVID-19 in Wuhan 0.4 weeks earlier than it was actually discovered, at 2,300 cases (standard error: 76 cases) compared to 3,400 (standard error: 161 cases). Wastewater monitoring would not have accelerated COVID-19 detection in Wuhan, but provides benefit in smaller catchments and for asymptomatic or long-incubation diseases like polio or HIV/AIDS. Monitoring of air travel provides little benefit in most scenarios we evaluated. In sum, early detection systems can substantially mitigate some future pandemics, but would not have changed the course of COVID-19.
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Project description:Researchers and policymakers have proposed systems to detect novel pathogens earlier than existing surveillance systems by monitoring samples from hospital patients, wastewater, and air travel, in order to mitigate future pandemics. How much benefit would such systems offer? We developed, empirically validated, and mathematically characterized a quantitative model that simulates disease spread and detection time for any given disease and detection system. We find that hospital monitoring could have detected COVID-19 in Wuhan 0.4 weeks earlier than it was actually discovered, at 2,300 cases (standard error: 76 cases) compared to 3,400 (standard error: 161 cases). Wastewater monitoring would not have accelerated COVID-19 detection in Wuhan, but provides benefit in smaller catchments and for asymptomatic or long-incubation diseases like polio or HIV/AIDS. Air travel monitoring does not accelerate outbreak detection in most scenarios we evaluated. In sum, early detection systems can substantially mitigate some future pandemics, but would not have changed the course of COVID-19.
| S-EPMC10733317 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Since its outbreak in December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the death of more than 6.5 million people around the world. The high transmissibility of its causative agent, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, coupled with its potentially lethal outcome, provoked a profound global economic and social crisis. The urgency of finding suitable pharmacological tools to tame the pandemic shed light on the ever-increasing importance of computer simulations in rationalizing and speeding up the design of new drugs, further stressing the need for developing quick and reliable methods to identify novel active molecules and characterize their mechanism of action. In the present work, we aim at providing the reader with a general overview of the COVID-19 pandemic, discussing the hallmarks in its management, from the initial attempts at drug repurposing to the commercialization of Paxlovid, the first orally available COVID-19 drug. Furthermore, we analyze and discuss the role of computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) techniques, especially those that fall in the structure-based drug design (SBDD) category, in facing present and future pandemics, by showcasing several successful examples of drug discovery campaigns where commonly used methods such as docking and molecular dynamics have been employed in the rational design of effective therapeutic entities against COVID-19.
| S-EPMC10003049 | biostudies-literature
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Project description:Coronavirus Disease 2019 (CoViD-19) is the third type of coronavirus disease after severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) that appears in human population from the past two decades. It is highly contagious and rapidly spread in the human population and compelled global public health institutions on high alert. Due to genetic similarity of this novel coronavirus 2019 with bat virus its emergence from bat to humans is possible. The virus survive in the droplets of coughing and sneezing and spread around the large areas through infected person resulting in its rapid spread among people. Clinical symptoms of CoViD-19 include fever, dry cough, dyspnea, loose stool, nausea and vomiting. The present review discuss the origin of CoViD-19, its rapid spread, mortality rate and recoveries ratio around the world. Since its origin from Wuhan, the CoViD-19 spread very rapidly all across the countries, on April 17, 2020 this disease has affected 210 countries of the globe. The data obtained showed over 2.4 million confirmed cases of CoViD-19. Higher mortality rate was found in Algeria and Belgium as 15% and 13.95%, respectively. Lower mortality rate was found in Qatar 0.17% and Singapore 0.2%. Recovery versus deceased ratio showed that recovery was 68, 59 and 35 times higher than the death in Singapore, Qatar and Thailand respectively. It is concluded that 2019-novel corona virus is a zoonotic pathogen similar to MERS and SARS. Therefore, a barrier should be maintained between and across the human, household and wild animals to avoid such pandemics.
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Project description:BackgroundMore than 2 years into the COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 still impacts children's health and the management of pediatric hospitals. However, it is unclear which hygiene and infection control measures are effective and useful for pediatric hospitals. Here, we report infection control measures implemented at a tertiary care children's hospital. We evaluated frequency of SARS-CoV-2 detection in admitted patients, in-hospital transmission and infection related findings. Furthermore, we aimed to capture perspectives of health-care workers and caregivers on effectiveness and burden of infection control measures. Knowledge gained can inform management of the ongoing and future pandemics.MethodsWe designed a retrospective observational study and survey at a pediatric tertiary care referral center. Local infection control measures and respective guidelines regarding COVID-19 were reviewed. Three thousand seven hundred sixteen children under 18 years were tested for SARS-CoV-2 at the University Children's Hospital Tuebingen and data on SARS-CoV-2 transmission were retrieved from internal records. Two surveys were conducted among 219 staff members and 229 caregivers.ResultsLocal infection control measures comprised the formation of a task force, triage, protective hygiene measures and an adaptable SARS-CoV-2 test strategy. Between January 2020 and March 2021, SARS-CoV-2 infection was detected in 37 children presenting to our hospital, 21 of these were admitted. One hospital-acquired infection occurred. About 90% of health-care staff perceived the majority of measures as effective and appropriate. However, visitor restrictions and cancellation of scheduled treatments were perceived least effective by hospital staff and as a particular burden for patients and their caregivers. Visits at the pediatric emergency department significantly decreased during the pandemic. We drafted a pandemic action plan by ranking infection control measures according to local transmission stages.ConclusionsSARS-CoV-2 infection control measures implemented in our tertiary care children's hospital were evaluated by health-care workers as mostly effective and appropriate. In particular, good communication, transparency of decision-making as well as universal masking and infection screening were assessed as successful measures of infection control management. Visitor restrictions and cancellation of routine appointments, in contrast, were perceived as a particular burden on patient care and should be avoided. An established pandemic action plan may guide children's hospitals in the future.
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Project description:An unheard mobilization of resources to find SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapies has been sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Two years ago, COVID-19's launch propelled mRNA-based technologies into the public eye. Knowledge gained from mRNA technology used to combat COVID-19 is assisting in the creation of treatments and vaccines to treat existing illnesses and may avert pandemics in the future. Exploiting the capacity of mRNA to create therapeutic proteins to impede or treat a variety of illnesses, including cancer, is the main goal of the quickly developing, highly multidisciplinary field of biomedicine. In this review, we explore the potential of mRNA as a vaccine and therapeutic using current research findings.
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