The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global impact, disrupting the normal trends of our everyday life. More specifically, the effects of COVID-19 on road safety are still largely unexplored. Hence, this study aims to investigate the change in road safety trends due to COVID-19 using real-time traffic parameters. Results from the extensive analyses of the 2017 to 2020 data of Interstate-4 show that traffic volume decreased by 13.6% in 2020 compared to the average of 2017–2019’s volume, whereas there is a decreasing number of crashes at the higher volume. Average speed increased by 11.3% during the COVID-19 period; however, the increase in average speed during the COVID-19 period has an insignificant relationship with crash severities. Fatal crashes increased, while total crashes decreased, during the COVID-19 period; severe crashes decreased with the total crashes. Alcohol-related crashes decreased by 22% from 2019 to 2020. Thus, the road-safety trend due to the impact of COVID-19 has evidently changed and presents a unique trend. The findings of the study suggest a larger need for a more in-depth study to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on road safety, to minimize fatalities on roads through appropriate policy measures.

Geographical Information System (GIS) has widely been used in various steps of emergency management to contain the damages during any natural or manmade disasters within limit. This study presents how effectively GIS can be used for emergency management for one of the most densely populated areas of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. With the first-hand baseline information from field survey an optimum route model has been proposed to represent the travel time of road network in congested scenario. The vulnerable parts of the study area are exposed based on emergency response time of firefighting stations and medical facilities, and distance from evacuation points. Some emergency response units have been suggested to enhance the disaster preparedness of the study area. Furthermore, the state of practice spatial analyses method presented in this study can be utilized in different spatial scales especially in regard to developing countries.

Abstract:In Bangladesh tuberculosis (TB) cases are fairly common but isolated hepatobilliary TB cases are extremely rare. Liver abscess due to TB without involvement of any other site causes diagnostic delay and can easily confuse with pyogenic or amoebic liver abscess or haepatocellular carcinoma. We present a case of a 44-years-old diabetic,normotensive male who presented with prolonged high grade fever with chill and rigor with tender hepatomegally. He was put on treatment for liver abscess but was not responding. Later on, histopathology was done and it turned out to be a case of tuberculous liver abscess.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bmj.v41i3.18959Bangladesh Medical Journal 2012 Vol.41(3): 45-48