The impact of COVID-19 on hepatitis services and civil society organisations.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Wingrove C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8316644 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing public health threat in Africa. AMR prevention and control requires coordination across multiple sectors of government and civil society partners. Objectives: To assess the current role, needs, and capacities of CSOs working in AMR in Africa. Methods: We conducted an online survey of 35 CSOs working in 37 countries across Africa. The survey asked about priorities for AMR, current AMR-specific activities, monitoring practices, training needs, and preferences for sharing information on AMR. Further data were gathered on the main roles of the organisations, the length of time engaged in and budget spent on AMR-related activities, and their involvement in the development and implementation of National Action Plans (NAPs). Results were assessed against The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) Framework for Antimicrobial Resistance (2018-2023). Results: CSOs with AMR-related activities are working in all four areas of Africa CDC's Framework: improving surveillance, delaying emergence, limiting transmission, and mitigating harm from infections caused by AMR microorganisms. Engagement with the four objectives is mainly through advocacy, followed by accountability and service delivery. There were limited monitoring activities reported by CSOs, with only seven (20%) providing an example metric used to monitor their activities related to AMR, and 27 (80%) CSOs reporting having no AMR-related strategy. Half the CSOs reported engaging with the development and implementation of NAPs; however, only three CSOs are aligning their work with these national strategies. Conclusion: CSOs across Africa are supporting AMR prevention and control, however, there is potential for more engagement. Africa CDC and other government agencies should support the training of CSOs in strategies to control AMR. Tailored training programmes can build knowledge of AMR, capacity for monitoring processes, and facilitate further identification of CSOs' contribution to the AMR Framework and alignment with NAPs and regional strategies.
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Project description:To accelerate COVID-19 vaccination delivery, Zambia integrated COVID-19 vaccination into HIV treatment centers and used World AIDS Day 2021 to launch a national vaccination campaign. This campaign was associated with significantly increased vaccinations, demonstrating that HIV programs can be leveraged to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake.
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Project description:Research on Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) often aims to provide solutions for vulnerable populations, such as individuals with diseases, conditions or disabilities that keep them from using traditional interfaces. Such research thereby contributes to the public good. This contribution to the public good corresponds to a broader drive of research and funding policy that focuses on promoting beneficial societal impact. One way of achieving this is to engage with the public. In practical terms this can be done by integrating civil society organisations (CSOs) in research. The open question at the heart of this paper is whether and how such CSO integration can transform the research and contribute to the public good. To answer this question the paper describes five detailed qualitative case studies of research projects including CSOs. The paper finds that transformative impact of CSO integration is possible but by no means assured. It provides recommendations on how transformative impact can be promoted.
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Project description:Background: The rapid growth in cases of COVID-19 has challenged national healthcare capacity, testing systems at an advanced ICU, and public health infrastructure level. This global study evaluates the association between multi-factorial healthcare capacity and case fatality of COVID-19 patients by adjusting for demographic, health expenditure, population density, and prior burden of non-communicable disease. It also explores the impact of government relationships with civil society as a predictor of infection and mortality rates. Methods: Data were extracted from the Johns Hopkins University database, World Bank records and the National Civic Space Ratings 2020 database. This study used data from 86 countries which had at least 1,000 confirmed cases on 30th April 2020. Negative binomial regression model was used to assess the association between case fatality (a ratio of total number of confirmed deaths to total number of confirmed cases) and healthcare capacity index adjusting for other covariates. Findings: Regression analysis shows that greater healthcare capacity was related to lesser case-fatality [incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.5811; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.4727-0.7184; p < 0.001] with every additional unit increase in the healthcare capacity index associated with a 42% decrease in the case fatality. Health expenditure and civil society variables did not reach statistical significance but were positively associated with case fatalities. Interpretation: Based on preliminary data, this research suggests that building effective multidimensional healthcare capacity is the most promising means to mitigate future case fatalities. The data also suggests that government's ability to implement public health measures to a degree determines mortality outcomes.
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Project description:Despite receiving less attention than high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) experienced more than 85% of global excess deaths during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the unprecedented speed and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, which placed large demands on government capacity, many LMICs relied on civil society organizations (CSOs) to assist in implementing COVID-19 response programs. Yet few studies have examined the critical role CSOs played in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in low resource settings. This study explored the CSO response to COVID-19 in five of the most heavily impacted LMICs in the Global South. Interviews were conducted from May to August 2021 with a purposive sample of CSO key informants within each of the five countries. A total of 52 CSOs were selected from which 53 key informants were interviewed either via Zoom or by phone. Interviews were coded and analyzed using NVivo or MAXQDA2020. Out of the 52 CSOs selected, 24 were national organizations, 8 were regional, and 20 were local. CSOs fell into six categories: community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, unions/professional organizations, campaigns/social movements, research organizations/think tanks, and networks/coalitions. CSOs across all five countries adapted their missions, stretched their resources, and performed a wide range of activities that fit into five programmatic areas: food security and livelihood support, public health and medical care, cash transfer programs, risk communication and community education, and needs assessment. This qualitative analysis demonstrates the critical role CSOs played in supplementing government emergency aid response by delivering necessary resources and supporting highly vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the primary challenges they faced in doing so. Given the generally weak state of public capacity in the LMICs studied, this role was vital to responding to the pandemic.
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Project description:The database here described contains data of integrated surveillance for the "Coronavirus disease 2019" (abbreviated as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization) in Italy, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The database, included in a main folder called COVID-19, has been designed and created by the Italian Civil Protection Department, which currently manages it. The database consists of six folders called 'aree' (containing charts of geographical areas interested by containment measures), 'dati-andamento-nazionale' (containing data relating to the national trend of SARS-CoV-2 spread), 'dati-json' (containing data that summarize the national, provincial and regional trends of SARS-CoV-2 spread), 'dati-province' (containing data relating to the provincial trend of SARS-CoV-2 spread), 'dati-regioni' (containing data relating to the regional trend of SARS-CoV-2 spread) and 'schede-riepilogative' (containing summary sheets relating to the provincial and regional trends of SARS-CoV-2 spread). The Italian Civil Protection Department daily receives data by the Italian Ministry of Health, analyzes them and updates the database. Thus, the database is subject to daily updates and integrations. The database is freely accessible (CC-BY-4.0 license) at https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19. This database is useful to provide insight on the spread mechanism of SARS-CoV-2, to support organizations in the evaluation of the efficiency of current prevention and control measures, and to support governments in the future prevention decisions.
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