Publications by authors named "Fall I"
This proposed scientific statement is focused on providing new insights regarding challenges and opportunities for cardiovascular health (CVH) promotion in Africa. The statement includes an overview of the current state of CVH in Africa, with a particular interest in the cardiometabolic risk factors and their evaluation through metrics. The statement also explains the main principles of primordial prevention, its relevance in reducing noncommunicable disease and the different strategies that have been effective worldwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Assess the effectiveness of ring vaccination in controlling an Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Methods: This analysis focuses on two areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Beni and Butembo/Katwa, which were affected during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak. To simulate Ebola virus transmission, we used a spatially explicit agent-based model with households, health care facilities, and Ebola treatment units.
Background: At the beginning of the 2018-2020 outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), no vaccine had been licensed. However, cluster-randomized evidence from Guinea in 2015 had indicated that ring vaccination around new cases (targeting contacts and contacts-of-contacts) with the use of single-dose live-replicating rVSV-ZEBOV-GP vaccine reduced EVD rates starting 10 days after vaccination. Thus, ring vaccination was added to the standard control measures for that outbreak.
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- The study focuses on assessing the burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in China from 2005 to 2020, revealing significant progress in controlling these diseases despite a lack of comprehensive data on their distribution and impact.
- Analysis shows a dramatic reduction in the overall NTD burden, with DALYs decreasing from over 245,000 in 2005 to about 18,000 in 2020, primarily driven by declines in schistosomiasis and rabies.
- The research highlights specific regions, like Sichuan and Hunan, that experienced high diversity and burden of NTDs, emphasizing the need for targeted national health strategies and resource allocation.
Article Synopsis
- The WHO Emergency Medical Teams Initiative aims to quickly deploy qualified medical teams to respond to public health emergencies globally, with special emphasis on enhancing capacities, particularly in the African region.
- Since 2016, 40 EMTs have been classified worldwide, but only 10 priority African countries are incorporating them to tackle regional health emergencies.
- A case study approach was used to examine the development and progress of national EMTs in Africa, documenting challenges and lessons learned since the initiative's launch in December 2017.
Important policy questions during infections disease outbreaks include: i) How effective are particular interventions?; ii) When can resource-intensive interventions be removed? We used mathematical modelling to address these questions during the 2017 Ebola outbreak in Likati Health Zone, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Eight cases occurred before 15 May 2017, when the Ebola Response Team (ERT; co-ordinated by the World Health Organisation and DRC Ministry of Health) was deployed to reduce transmission. We used a branching process model to estimate that, pre-ERT arrival, the reproduction number was (95% credible interval ).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change, malaria and neglected tropical diseases: a scoping review.
Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg
September 2024
Article Synopsis
- The study looked at how climate change impacts malaria and other tropical diseases over the past 13 years.
- Researchers found that many studies focus on malaria and dengue, but less on some other important diseases.
- There’s still a lot we don’t know about how climate change will affect these diseases, so we need better research to figure it out.
Over the past decade, considerable progress has been made in the control, elimination, and eradication of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Despite these advances, most NTD programs have recently experienced important setbacks; for example, NTD interventions were some of the most frequently and severely impacted by service disruptions due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Mathematical modeling can help inform selection of interventions to meet the targets set out in the NTD road map 2021-2030, and such studies should prioritize questions that are relevant for decision-makers, especially those designing, implementing, and evaluating national and subnational programs.
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- * The WHO published the first COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update on August 17, 2020, and continued until the final edition on September 1, 2023, after which updates transitioned to a comprehensive format every 4 weeks.
- * The article reviews the WEU's data collection and publication process, its global impact, and offers recommendations to improve collaboration and information sharing for future health crises.
Introduction: Using health facility types as a measure of service availability is a common approach in international standards for health system policy and planning. However, this proxy may not accurately reflect the actual availability of specific health services.
Objective: This study aims to evaluate the reliability of health facility typology as an indicator of specific health service availability and explore whether certain facility types consistently provide particular services.
Article Synopsis
- WHO collaborates with countries to manage acute public health events by providing reliable information through Disease Outbreak News (DON) reports.
- Since 1996, WHO has published over 3000 DON reports, focusing on major health threats like Ebola and cholera, with significant public interest highlighted by 2.6 million visits per year.
- The structure of DON reports has evolved to enhance clarity and detail, reflecting WHO's ongoing efforts to improve how they communicate health information globally.
Lignin is the most important natural source of aromatic compounds. The valorisation of lignin into aromatics requires fractionation steps that can be catalysed by ligninolytic enzymes. However, one of the main limitations of biological lignin fractionation is the low efficiency of biocatalysts; it is therefore crucial to enhance or to identify new ligninolytic enzymes.
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- The Joint External Evaluation (JEE) is a WHO-recommended assessment tool for evaluating countries' capabilities under the International Health Regulations, implemented across all 47 African nations after the West Africa Ebola outbreak.
- Tanzania was the first to conduct a JEE in February 2016, with a total of 360 experts from 88 organizations involved by April 2022.
- Key challenges included a lack of understanding of the JEE process and limited resources, but lessons learned emphasized the importance of local leadership, stakeholder involvement, and the need for better financing and planning for future evaluations.
Background: In May 2022, several countries with no history of sustained community transmission of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) notified WHO of new mpox cases. These cases were soon followed by a large-scale outbreak, which unfolded across the world, driven by local, in-country transmission within previously unaffected countries. On July 23, 2022, WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Despite tremendous progress in the development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics for Ebola virus disease (EVD), challenges remain in the implementation of holistic strategies to rapidly curtail outbreaks. We investigated the effectiveness of a community-based contact isolation strategy to limit the spread of the disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Methods: We did a quasi-experimental comparison study.
Energy supply that is sustainable, effective, and economical has a strong association with socio-economic growth, particularly in developing countries such as Pakistan. Due to the ever-increasing gap between supply and demand, Pakistan has become an energy-deficient nation, with most people having no-to-limited access to power. Pakistan has been suffering from power shortages and an energy crisis because of its strong reliance on fossil-fuels to provide expensive electricity.
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- The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed weaknesses in current public health emergency preparedness frameworks, which inadequately address various social, economic, and ecological factors.
- The One Health approach, which examines connections among humans, animals, and ecosystems, offers a useful perspective for improving these assessment frameworks.
- A radical increase in ambition is necessary for health security assessments to encompass complex systems and prioritize core One Health principles, while also evaluating interventions based on their holistic benefits and trade-offs.
Background: Strategy to mitigate various Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks are focusing on Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) capacity building, supportive supervision and IPC supply donation. This study was conducted to assess the impact of a Pay for Performance Strategy (PPS) in improving IPC performance in healthcare facilities (HF) in context of the 2018-2019 Nord Kivu/ Democratic Republic of the Congo EVD outbreak.
Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted analysing the impact of a PPS on the IPC performance.