Date of introduction and epidemiologic patterns of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Mogadishu, Somalia: estimates from transmission modelling of satellite-based excess mortality data in 2020.

In countries with weak surveillance systems, confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) deaths are likely to underestimate the pandemic's death toll. Many countries also have incomplete vital registration systems, hampering excess mortality estimation. Here, we fitted a dynamic transmission model to satellite imagery data of cemeteries in Mogadishu, Somalia during 2020 to estimate the date of introduction and other epidemiologic parameters of the early spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in this low-income, crisis-affected setting.

Excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic: a geospatial and statistical analysis in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Background: While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented in high-income countries, less is known about the health effects in Somalia, where health systems are weak and vital registration is underdeveloped.

Methods: We used remote sensing and geospatial analysis to quantify burial numbers from January 2017 to September 2020 in Mogadishu. We imputed missing grave counts using surface area data.

Researching the delivery of health and nutrition interventions for women and children in the context of armed conflict: lessons on research challenges and strategies from BRANCH Consortium case studies of Somalia, Mali, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Background: The BRANCH Consortium recently conducted 10 mixed-methods case studies to investigate the provision of health and nutrition interventions for women and children in conflict-affected countries, aiming to better understand the dominant influences on humanitarian health actors' programmatic decision-making and how such actors surmount intervention delivery barriers. In this paper, the research challenges encountered and the mitigating strategies employed by the case study investigators in four of the BRANCH case study contexts are discussed: Somalia, Mali, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Discussion: Many of the encountered research challenges were anticipated, with investigators adopting mitigation strategies in advance or early on, but others were unexpected, with implications for how studies were ultimately conducted and how well the original study aims were met.

Health Status and Health Care Needs of Drought-Related Migrants in the Horn of Africa-A Qualitative Investigation.

Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, situated in the Horn of Africa, are highly vulnerable to climate change, which manifests itself through increasing temperatures, erratic rains and prolonged droughts. Millions of people have to flee from droughts or floods either as cross-border refugees or as internally displaced persons (IDPs). The aim of this study was to identify knowledge status and gaps regarding public health consequences of large-scale displacement in these countries.

Understanding the factors affecting the humanitarian health and nutrition response for women and children in Somalia since 2000: a case study.

Background: Somalia has been ravaged by more than two decades of armed conflict causing immense damage to the country's infrastructure and mass displacement and suffering among its people. An influx of humanitarian actors has sought to provide basic services, including health services for women and children, throughout the conflict. This study aimed to better understand the humanitarian health response for women and children in Somalia since 2000.

Rebuilding research capacity in fragile states: the case of a Somali-Swedish global health initiative.

This paper presents an initiative to revive the previous Somali-Swedish Research Cooperation, which started in 1981 and was cut short by the civil war in Somalia. A programme focusing on research capacity building in the health sector is currently underway through the work of an alliance of three partner groups: six new Somali universities, five Swedish universities, and Somali diaspora professionals. Somali ownership is key to the sustainability of the programme, as is close collaboration with Somali health ministries.

Low prevalence of bilateral (presumed nutritional) optic neuropathy as a cause of blindness in the Gambia.

Objective: Previous reports of epidemics of optic neuropathy in Africa have mainly focused on eastern and central areas. Our study aimed to measure the prevalence of optic neuropathy in The Gambia, a West African country, and compare this prevalence with a simultaneously occurring epidemic of optic neuropathy, now considered endemic, in Tanzania.

Methods: The sample population, derived from the Gambian National Blindness Survey (1996), was selected using simple random sampling.

Epidemic optic neuropathy is evident in the Somalian population.

Background: Optic neuropathy epidemics have proven to be a serious public health problem around the world. Recently, documented outbreaks have occurred in Cuba and Tanzania, with almost identical clinical presentation. Investigations of both epidemics have implicated nutritional deficiencies as part of a multifactorial etiology, and thus, it is proposed that there may be many undetected epidemics in other food-deprived nations.