This study aimed at describing the experience of academic staff and students with distance education, during the COVID-19 pandemic, at a college of pharmacy in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This study used a mixed-method approach. The first phase implemented a survey that targeted both academic staff and students to evaluate their experiences with distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, a focus group discussion was conducted to explore, in-depth, their experience. The survey consisted of five domains as follows: readiness for the shift to distance education during the full and partial lockdown, perception towards distance education, barriers against distance education, and the acquisitions due to distance education. A five-point Likert scale was used to assess participants' responses to the different domains (mean score ± standard deviation). Results: Seventy-eight percent of the academic staff and 65% of the students responded to the survey. Participants' views were positive for readiness for the shift to distance education during the full lockdown (3.89±0.42 for academic staff and 3.82±0.50 for students) with almost similar evaluation for the readiness during the blended learning period (3.91±0.44 for staff and 3.83±0.59 for students). The findings showed a generally positive perception towards distance education (3.59± 0.67 for academic staff and 3.47±0.64 for students). The acquisitions due to distance education were also positive (3.95±0.72 for academic staff and 3.78±0.77 for students). Nonetheless, some barriers that affected distance education were raised with an overall neutral view from both academic staff (3.31±0.72) and students (3.31±0.64), with different responses for the individual items. Qualitative findings from the focus group discussions explored the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges, with emphasis on the areas for improvement. Conclusion: Although the shift for distance education was out of a sudden, participants showed overall positive views about their experience with distance education and highlighted areas for improvement.

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Efficient dispensing of prescriptions is the primary focus of community pharmacists in Khartoum State with some PC activities. The pharmacists have expressed a willingness to implement PC practice but indicated a number of barriers to successful implementation.

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Background The world has been battling several vector-borne diseases since time immemorial. Socio-economic marginality, precipitation variations and human behavioral attributes play a major role in the proliferation of these diseases. Lockdown and social distancing have affected social behavioral aspects of human life and somehow impact on the spread of vector borne diseases. This article sheds light into the relationship between COVID-19 lockdown and global dengue burden with special focus on India. It also focuses on the interconnection of the COVID-19 pandemic (waves 1 and 2) and the alteration of human behavioral patterns in dengue cases. Methods We performed a systematic search using various resources from different platforms and websites, such as Medline; Pubmed; PAHO; WHO; CDC; ECDC; Epidemiology Unit Ministry of Health (Sri Lanka Government); NASA; NVBDCP from 2015 until 2021. We have included many factors, such as different geographical conditions (tropical climate, semitropic and arid conditions); GDP rate (developed nations, developing nations, and underdeveloped nations). We also categorized our data in order to conform to COVID-19 duration from 2019 to 2021. Data was extracted for the complete duration of 10 years (2012 to 2021) from various countries with different geographical region (arid region, semitropic/semiarid region and tropical region). Results There was a noticeable reduction in dengue cases in underdeveloped (70–85%), developing (50–90%), and developed nations (75%) in the years 2019 and 2021. The dengue cases drastically reduced by 55–65% with the advent of COVID-19 s wave in the year 2021 across the globe. Conclusions At present, we can conclude that COVID-19 and dengue show an inverse relationship. These preliminary, data-based observations should guide clinical practice until more data are made public and basis for further medical research.