Reflections on "Ministry" within the Ministry of Public Health in Developing Countries.

This paper is a reflection on the word, "ministry" within the ministry of public health, and draws attention to the religious connotation to enunciate the breadth and depth of the ministry mandate in public health service, education and practice in developing countries.

Harnessing the potentials of masters/mistresses of ceremony to promote community health and wellbeing amidst COVID-19 and other public health challenges.

Public health risk communication and general health information dissemination efforts require multiple approaches to sustainably engage communities to pursue individual and collective preventive actions. Engaging only highly skilled professionals to deliver public health messages, particularly in low and middle-income countries is expensive. Thus, masters/mistresses of ceremony (MCs) have the potential to contribute to disseminating evidence-based messages to communities on existing, emerging or re-emerging public health issues in developed and developing countries, thereby complementing existing dissemination efforts being made towards malaria, HIV/AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) prevention and control, among others.

We need to start thinking about promoting the demand, uptake, and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines NOW!

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is spreading rapidly within countries around the world, thus necessitating the World Health Organisation (WHO) to project that the peak of the pandemic has not been reached yet. Globally, COVID-19 public health control measures are being implemented; however, promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates are still in the early-stage clinical trials. Judging from previous vaccine programs around the world and the challenges encountered in the distribution and uptake, there seems to be no guarantee that there will be widespread acceptance and equitable distribution of the new COVID-19 vaccines when they are approved for use.

"We Need a Song of Hope": Responding to the COVID-19 Informational and Psychospiritual Needs of Residents of a Gated Community in the Philippines.

The brutal disruptions caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic require dynamic ways of responding, not only to the informational needs of communities, but also engaging and creating interventions they consider relevant to their psychospiritual needs. Using the design thinking steps, we identified, developed and tested the type and nature of a unique song which residents of a gated community needed in their journey through COVID-19 lockdowns and government restrictions. The design thinking model provided clear steps for engaging residents to develop an anti-COVID-19 song of hope to cope with the physical, sociopolitical, psychological and spiritual trauma caused by the pandemic.

Sexual and Reproductive Health Research and Research Capacity Strengthening in Africa: Perspectives from the region.

Developing the capacity to effectively carry out public health research is an integral part of health systems at both the national and global levels and strengthening research capacity is recognized as an approach to better health and development in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Especially fields such as sexual and reproductive health (SRH) would require inter-disciplinary teams of researchers equipped with a range of methodologies to achieve this. In November 2013, as part of the International Family Planning Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a group of African researchers came together to discuss the gaps and strategies to improve sexual and reproductive health research and research capacity strengthening in Africa.