Background: Preparedness, readiness, and response status of any country is integral in identifying, managing, and preventing COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study is to assess the status of the Government of Nepal designated COVID hospitals and COVID clinics to respond against COVID-19. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted with the focal persons of COVID hospitals and COVID clinics using a semi-structured questionnaire from April 26, 2020 to May 27, 2020 via face to face interview with onsite observation and telephonic interview in few unreachable health facilities. Results: Government of Nepal designated COVID hospitals and COVID clinics demonstrated efforts in establishing preparedness plans and committees such as COVID management core team (96.7% and 86%), provision of coordination with the government authority (both 100% ), preparedness response plan (93.3% and 84%), and infection prevention and control committee (63.3% and 65.6%) to respond to COVID-19 respectively. The participants reported differences in training provided to their health care workers with maximum COVID hospitals (80%) providing training on use of personal protective equipment and least (43.3%) on handling dead bodies. Only half of the COVID clinics (49.5%) had provision of triage systems.Conclusions: COVID hospitals and COVID clinics in Nepal demonstrated different status of COVID pandemic preparedness and readiness. In case of surge, Nepalese hospitals would struggle due to lack of trained workforce and infrastructure. Interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral collaboration with various focused strategies, including in-service training to staff, is paramount to increase preparedness and readiness. Keywords: COVID-19; Nepal; preparedness; readiness
The global pandemic of COVID-19 has created havoc worldwide with its high transmission rate. The vaccine and drugs are still under trial; thus, the only option is to break the chain of transmission of disease by imparting the knowledge and designing awareness campaigns to educate people about the risks and preventive measures of COVID-19. This study was conducted to explore the knowledge and perception on health behaviors related to prevention along with addressing several myths and practices for COVID-19. An online cross-sectional survey was carried out in the initial days of disease outbreak in Nepal. A structured questionnaire was used for the data collection and recruitment of participants was done using snowball sampling technique. A total of 358 participants from all over the country were recruited for the study. Output measures were portrayed through descriptive statistical analysis with the use of frequencies (n) and percentages (%). Most of the participants (94.1%) knew about the high-risk age group, 38.5% were unaware that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted even from objects. Participants had better knowledge on modes of transmission of disease (77.1%) while 49.2% thought that regular surgical mask is highly effective for the preventive measure. Findings of this study suggests that people of Nepal are required to be educated about false beliefs and misconceptions. The findings and concerns raised in the study would be beneficial to design awareness-raising campaigns tailored specifically to the need for and understanding of the Nepalese community. Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 7, Issue-4: 183-190
Background: Public health emergency is vulnerable time where maintaining ethical principles is obligatory while doing research, on the other hand, it is the same time when breach in ethics is much likely whenever a researcher is unaware, unprepared or hastens to do research. The aim of this study was to assess ethical issues of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) related research proposals submitted during the early stages of pandemic in Nepal.Methods: Retrospective analysis of COVID-19 related research proposals and their informed consent document submitted to the ethical review board at Nepal Health Research Council was done for the study. The analysis was done as per the National Ethical Guidelines, Standard Operating Procedure for Health Research in Nepal and World Health Organization guidelines for infectious disease outbreak, 2016 under ethically relevant headings. Descriptive data were analyzed in SPSS v24.Results: The major issues were observed in the informed consent documents where 55% were lacking principal investigator’s contact information, 68% not having participant selection criteria, 70% without clear informed consent taking process, 57% without explanation of possible risks. Similarly, 68% of the interventional studies’ consent form didn’t mention possible adverse events and mitigation mechanisms.Conclusions: Most of the research proposals related to COVID-19 were devoid of major ethical elements which took longer time for receiving approval and eventually delayed the opportunity for evidence generation in critical time. More attention is needed to increase awareness and to develop capacity of researchers, reviewers, ethics committees and relevant stakeholders at the time of health emergencies.Keywords: COVID-19; ethics pandemic; research proposals
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