ABSTRACT
This paper explores the quality and usefulness of ethical guidance for humanitarian aid workers and their agencies. We focus specifically on public health emergencies, such as COVID-19. The authors undertook a literature review and gathered empirical data through semi-structured focus group discussions amongst front-line workers from health clinics in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh and in the Abyei Special Administrative Area, South Sudan. The purpose of the project was to identify how front-line workers respond to ethical challenges, including any informal or local decision-making processes, support networks, or habits of response.The research findings highlighted a dissonance between ethical guidance and the experiences of front-line humanitarian health workers. They suggest the possibility: (1) that few problems confronting front-line workers are conceived, described, or resolved as ethical problems; and (2) of significant dissonance between available, allegedly practically oriented guidance (often produced by academics in North America and Europe), and the immediate issues confronting front-line workers. The literature review and focus group data suggest a real possibility that there is, at best, a significant epistemic gulf between those who produce ethical guidelines and those engaged in real-time problem solving at the point of contact with people. At worst they suggest a form of epistemic control-an imposition of cognitive shapes that shoehorn the round peg of theoretical preoccupations and the disciplinary boundaries of western academies into the square hole of front-line humanitarian practice.
Subject(s)
Altruism , COVID-19 , Health Personnel , Humans , Morals , Public HealthABSTRACT
Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a virulent disease most commonly found in East and Southeast Asia. Symptoms include ulcers or sores, inside or around the mouth. In this research, we formulate the dynamic model of HFMD by using the SEIQR model. We separated the infection episodes where there is a higher outbreak and a lower outbreak of the disease associated with regional residency, with the higher level of outbreak occurring in the urban region, and a lower outbreak level occurring in the rural region. We developed two different optimal control programs for the types of outbreaks. Optimal Control Policy 1 (OPC1) is limited to the use of treatment only, whereas Optimal Control Policy 2 (OPC2) includes vaccination along with the treatment. The Pontryagin’s maximum principle is used to establish the necessary and optimal conditions for the two policies. Numerical solutions are presented along with numerical sensitivity analyses of the required control efforts needed as the control parameters are changed. Results show that the time tmax required for the optimal control effort to stay at the maximum amount umax exhibits an intrinsic logarithmic relationship with respect to the control parameters.