Infectious Diseases
- Improving Hospital Oxygen Systems for COVID-19 in Low-Resource Settings: Lessons From the Field
Hospitals in low- and middle-income countries urgently need to improve their oxygen systems for COVID-19 and other health emergencies. We share practical tips to improve pulse oximetry and oxygen use, support biomedical engineers to optimize existing oxygen supplies, and expand existing oxygen systems with robust equipment and smart design.
- Opportunities and Challenges of Delivering Postabortion Care and Postpartum Family Planning During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Devoting scarce health resources to meet the family planning needs of pregnant, postabortion, and postpartum women during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is an investment against higher health systems burdens during subsequent waves of the pandemic and a means to save lives and improve livelihoods.
- A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the Drivers of HIV Status Knowledge in Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Mozambique
We identified combinations of modifiable factors that HIV programs supporting orphans, vulnerable children, and their families may be able to act on to increase the proportion of beneficiaries who know their HIV status.
- Will the Higher-Income Country Blueprint for COVID-19 Work in Low- and Lower Middle-Income Countries?
Strategies to radically suppress incidence of COVID-19, as used in higher-income countries, may be unrealistic and counterproductive in most low- and lower middle-income countries. Instead, strategies should be tailored to the setting, balancing expected benefits, potential harms, and feasibility.
- Contraception in the Era of COVID-19
As global health systems and communities prepare to meet an unprecedented threat causing increased demands for the care of people with COVID-19, health care providers should strive to ensure continuity of reproductive health care to women and girls in the face of facility service disruption.
- Doing Things Differently: What It Would Take to Ensure Continued Access to Contraception During COVID-19
COVID-19 may fundamentally change women’s contraceptive use, meaning that the future we have been planning and procuring for, may not match these changes. In these unprecedented times, we must rethink how we link product and program in the short-term to ensure women’s changing needs are met.
- Multimonth Dispensing of Antiretroviral Therapy Protects the Most Vulnerable From 2 Pandemics at Once
We encourage governments in countries that have a high prevalence of people living with HIV to implement multimonth dispensing of antiretroviral therapy to safeguard both patients with HIV and health care workers from coronavirus disease COVID-19.
- Diagnostic Utility and Impact on Clinical Decision Making of Focused Assessment With Sonography for HIV-Associated Tuberculosis in Malawi: A Prospective Cohort Study
Among patients with HIV and with probable/confirmed TB, using the focused assessment with sonography for HIV-associated TB (FASH) protocol led to a 5-fold increase in the clinician's decision to initiate TB treatment on that day. FASH is a supplementary tool that can help clinicians diagnose patients with HIV-associated TB at the point-of-care and reduce delays in their treatment, particularly when access to other diagnostics is limited or unavailable.