Month: August 2022

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. August 31, 2022 By Nellie Bristol   Infectious disease physician and Duke Professor Paul Pronyk remembers watching helplessly in the late 1990s as HIV-exposed patients entered a clinic in South Africa where he could not provide the quick diagnoses required to begin treatment. The availability of a new rapid test was a game changer, he said, allowing clinicians to immediately determine patient status and offer treatments to HIV-positive pregnant women to protect their babies. Now, as head of the newly established Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Medical School Centre for Outbreak Preparedness, he sees the possibility of similar breakthroughs on a wider scale in South and Southeast Asia. “I’ve never been so excited about the potential for things to transform in a very fundamental…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. August 18, 2022 By Nellie Bristol While the world developed and distributed COVID-19 vaccines with unprecedented speed, the required emergency focus, coupled with response inequities and disruptions caused by the pandemic itself, took an enormous toll on health services. Health workers burned out, access to care fell, and childhood vaccinations suffered the largest sustained decline in 30 years. While the pandemic’s trajectory remains unknown, the latest wave appears to have peaked, creating space to consider how to incorporate COVID management into routine services, help health systems recover, and use lessons and resources to increase preparedness. To move toward those goals, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF are developing a document outlining considerations for incorporating COVID-19 vaccination into national immunization programs and primary care. Among priorities is helping…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. August 11, 2022 By Katharine Olson and Nellie Bristol COVID-19 has disrupted clinical care and supply chains throughout the world, testing the resilience and flexibility of health systems everywhere. Services for those living with HIV/AIDS are no exception. UNAIDS’ “In Danger” report, released last week at the 24th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022), highlighted the devastating impacts the “multiple and overlapping” crises of the last two years have had on people living with and affected by HIV. New data included in the report show shrinking resources and growing inequalities that could result in millions of new infections and AIDS-related deaths if the current course is not reversed. Galvanized by the dire projections and using the lessons and innovations fostered by the pandemic itself, conference participants,…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. August 3, 2022 By Talkmore Maruta, Senior Biosafety and Biosecurity Officer, Africa CDC and Nellie Bristol, COVID GAP With its rapidly growing urban population, high burden of infectious disease, and widespread gaps in health care capacities, Africa is particularly vulnerable to potentially devastating epidemics. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has been on the forefront of addressing the issue. One important example is the Biosafety and Biosecurity Initiative, which aims to improve the handling of dangerous substances across the continent. Aided by new prominence given to biosafety and biosecurity as a result of COVID-19, working together with African Union Member States and supported by regional and international partners, Africa CDC has made significant progress toward a regional approach to…