This Skills Online Program aims to help public health practitioners develop and strengthen their knowledge and skills in order to make better-informed public health decisions. The EPI1: Basic Epidemiological Concepts module is the first in a set of three modules on epidemiology in public health and is the only one currently being offered through PAHO's Virtual Campus for Public Health. The module provides an introduction to some key epidemiologic concepts, allowing participants the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the fundamentals of epidemiology, and build skills in applying basic epidemiological principles to their work as public health practitioners.
Useful Resources
Basic Epidemiological Concepts - 2020 (2nd cohort)
Pan American Health Organisation: PAHO, 2020
Imagining Impacts – The Goethe-Institut in Africa
African Centre for Cities, October 2020
The African Centre for Cities and the Goethe-Institut are collaborating on a project entitled Imagining Impacts that explores the role of culture on the continent through a range of regionally focused, and locally specific projects related to 1) decolonisation and just transitions in Africa; 2) solidarity, support and social cohesion; 3) spaces for daring and dissent; and 4) power and agency. The project will provide events and activities in 2021 where these issues can be thought through collectively.
Coronavirus: Ten African innovations to help tackle Covid-19
BBC, August 2020
As Africa passes more than a million confirmed Covid-19 cases, innovators on the continent have responded to the challenges of the pandemic with a wide range of creative inventions. These innovations include the ‘Doctor Car’ designed by students from the Dakar Polytechnic School. This multifunctional robot is designed to lower the risk of Covid-19 contamination from patients to caregivers. The device is equipped with cameras and is remotely controlled via an app. The designers say it can move around the rooms of quarantined patients to take their temperatures and deliver drugs and food. Nine-year-old Kenyan schoolboy Stephen Wamukota invented a wooden hand-washing machine to help curb the spread of coronavirus. The machine allows users to tip a bucket of water to wash their hands by using a foot pedal. This helps users avoid touching surfaces to reduce the risk of infection. Other innovations include portable ventilators designed in Nigeria, 3d printed masks in South Africa, solar powered hand sinks from Ghana, and online platforms for x-rays from Tunisia.
The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa
Fund oversight committee, 2020
The COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa is an action-oriented collaborative of over 30 organizations dedicated to protecting Community Health Workers (CHWs) on the frontlines of Africa’s COVID-19 response. The Fund’s goal is to raise up to $100 million to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) to CHWs in as many as 24 African countries for approximately one year; shipments have already begun. The Fund matches donated PPE with government-identified gaps and conducts end-use verification processes with in-country partners to document arrival and distribution of the supplies. Integrated with national responses, this is the only known effort that pools resources for PPE items specifically for community health workers in Africa
Gender, HRH, COVID-19 Resources
Open source Google doc
This open source Google doc is collating resources on gender and COVID-19. The doc comprises short summaries of articles which are organised under themes including ‘data and resources’, ‘gender based violence’, ‘women’s contributions’, ‘women’s leadership’, ‘unpaid care work’, ‘PPE’, ‘gender transformative policy’ and ‘gender pay gap’.
Gender-based violence prevention, risk mitigation and response during COVID-19
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: UNHCR, Geneva, March 2020
This briefing gives an overview of risks of gender-based violence (GBV) in the context of COVID-19. Confinement is expected to increase risks of intimate partner violence for displaced women and girls, worsened socio-economic situation exposes refugee women and girls to increased risks of sexual exploitation by community members and humanitarian workers and there will be challenges in access to regular GBV services. The briefing includes recommendations to mitigate risks and ensure access to GBV services. They include considering from the outset, the gendered impacts of COVID-19, considering the different physical, cultural, security and sanitary needs of women, men, boys and girls in quarantines, providing dignity kits to ensure menstrual health and consulting women and girls on preparedness plans and interventions. Programming through women-led organizations should be prioritised whenever feasible.
IHEA webinars on health economics and COVID-19
IHEA: Online, May 2020
iHEA runs a webinar series on a range of health economics topics, with a current emphasis on issues related to COVID-19 . The website provides a list and link to all upcoming webinars, with new webinar details being posted regularly. Several of these webinars will be held on a multilingual webinar platform to enable wider reach.
Managing the pregnant woman during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa: A clinical guide for health workers and clinical managers
Department of Health: Republic of South Africa, April 2020
These guidelines provide guidance to healthcare workers and managers for the management and treatment of pregnant women in the context of COVID-19, read in conjunction with current Maternal and Neonatal health Guidelines and Guidelines for Clinical Management of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 disease. The guidelines change as knowledge regarding strategies to address COVID- 19 develop globally and in South Africa and are updated regularly online.
Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) technical guidance
World Health Organisation: Geneva, January 2020
On 31 December 2019, WHO was alerted to several cases of pneumonia in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. The virus did not match any other known virus. This raised concern because when a virus is new, it is not known how it affects people. One week later, on 7 January, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus. The new virus is a coronavirus, which is a family of viruses that include the common cold, and viruses such as SARS and MERS. This new virus was temporarily named “2019-nCoV.” The World Health Organisation has released a number of guidelines aimed at preventing the spread and proliferation of the virus.
Rights for People, Rules for Corporations - #BindingTreaty
Democracy Centre: Film, December 2019
#COP25 can barely break into the news cycle - but the public is well aware by now that business-as-usual is not an option if ecological breakdown is to be averted and move to a fairer, safer and more peaceful ways of co-existing on the planet are to be found. Business-as-usual means maintaining trade rules and treaties that give corporations enormous power to endlessly extract natural resources; sacrificing communities and ecosystems in those places to feed rampant consumerism for the profit of a powerful minority. This film’s calls on us to reject business-as-usual and advocate for a #BindingTreaty on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights and are building solidarity across countries and movements to demand Rights for People, Rules for Corporations.