ABSTRACT
Northern Honduras experienced a high impact from hurricanes Eta and Iota during a peak of COVID-19 in 2020. Field surveys were conducted to assess the experiences and perceptions of the residents of the city of San Pedro Sula, as part of UNITEC's "Earth Observations Data Center" project. ArcGIS Survey and PowerBI were used to process and visualize responses from 1,428 respondents (see Cortés Data Hub). The main impacts were loss of employment, death of family members, migration, damage to homes and closure of businesses. 48% of those surveyed reported the intention of starting a business, especially related to the opening of various types of stores, the sale of supplies, technology and various types of services. 22% of those interviewed expressed their intention to emigrate. The supply of options for successful enterprises is an urgency on the part of the state and the private sector. Academic institutions must also innovate to respond to these population needs and mitigate the impact of natural and health events. © 2022 Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Proper territorial data management is critical for territorial planning projects, research, innovation, and the appropriate follow-up to act for the well-being of populations. A multidisciplinary team of professionals established a pilot project named Cortes Data Hub (Centro de Datos de Cortés). It presents several dashboards that show official statistics on the energy sector, mapping the region's energy demand, data on COVID-19 cases and vaccination rates by municipality or department, and a project using Google Earth that combines post-Eta and Iota observations and a social media campaign for disaster awareness and for the promotion of activities to develop tourism in the San Manuel Municipality. This pilot project shows the importance to observe and monitor various key environmental, health, and socioeconomic data. This will help improve initiatives for local development, disaster prevention and control, and the promotion of the One Health approach. The challenges to overcome are the quality and timing of data. Training more academics, government teams, and decision-makers in the use of new tools for data integration with earth observations are important for the Cortés department's development. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Azithromycin combined with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine has been used as treatment for SARS-CoV-2, but prolongation of QTc interval and malignant arrhythmias have been reported as adverse events. The occurrence of these abnormalities in Honduran patients is unknown. Aim of the study: To determine the prevalence of cardiac arrhythmias and prolongation of the QTc interval in hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin at Hospital General del Sur at Choluteca, Honduras. Methods: 24-hour electrocardiograms were performed in 21 patients over 18 years of age with COVID-19 stage II or III receiving treatment for seven days. Diagnosis was done by RT_PCR and/or with other accepted combined criteria. Analyses were done for QTc interval, supraventricular or ventricular arrhythmias, and heart rate variability. Results: Overall, 67% of patients were men and 33% had comorbidities (diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure and heart failure). Patients were hospitalized for at least 16 days. Median QTc interval was 410 milliseconds, median minimum heart rate 56 beats per minute, and median maximum heart rate 126 beats/minute. Four patients (19%) presented ventricular arrhythmias (<30 premature ventricular contractions in one hour, bigeminy, and a run of non-sustained monomorphic ventricular tachycardia). All patients showed QTc intervals less than 490 milliseconds. Conclusions: Frequency of ventricular arrhythmias during monitoring was in the lower ranges compared to similar studies. No prolongation of QTc interval was observed.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder that affects around 50 million worldwide and there is an abundance of literature on the health care gap for this sector of the population. This gap will increase with the current pandemic due to COVID-19. AIM: To evaluate the current availability of digital health tools for the care of people with epilepsy according to the world medical literature and their use during said pandemic. DEVELOPMENT: We reviewed the publications in scientific journals in the last decade that had as their main topic the use of digital health tools or telemedicine focused on the care of patients with epilepsy, including 4 months after the national quarantines due to the appearance of the virus SARS-CoV-2. Seventeen publications were found on the use of telemedicine focused on epilepsy. The most widely used tools internationally are online platforms, followed by mobile applications, videoconferences, epileptic seizure capture systems, checklists, algorithms for understanding medical data, phone calls, tele-encephalography and text messages. None was published during the COVID-19 current pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Although there is little literature on the use of digital health tools focused on epilepsy, there are several that can be used to fight the attention gap, especially in this global pandemic by COVID-19 that forces quarantines of people and communities for long periods. It is necessary to remove barriers and facilitate patient access to these new information technologies.
TITLE: Herramientas de salud digital para superar la brecha de atención en epilepsia antes, durante y después de la pandemia de COVID-19.Introducción. La epilepsia es un trastorno neurológico crónico común que afecta alrededor de 50 millones de personas en el mundo y abunda la bibliografía sobre la brecha de atención en salud a este sector de la población. Dicha brecha aumentará con la pandemia actual de COVID-19. Objetivo. Evaluar la disponibilidad actual de herramientas de salud digital para la atención a personas con epilepsia según la literatura médica mundial y su uso durante dicha pandemia. Desarrollo. Se hizo una revisión de las publicaciones en revistas científicas en la última década que tuvieran como tema principal el uso de herramientas de salud digital o telemedicina enfocada a la atención de los pacientes con epilepsia, incluyendo cuatro meses después de las cuarentenas nacionales por la aparición del virus SARS-CoV-2. Se encontraron 17 publicaciones sobre el uso de telemedicina enfocada a la epilepsia. Las herramientas más utilizadas internacionalmente son las plataformas en línea, seguidas de las aplicaciones móviles, videoconferencias, sistemas de captación de crisis epilépticas, listas de verificación, algoritmos de comprensión de datos médicos, llamadas telefónicas, telelectroencefalografía y mensajes de texto. Ninguna se publicó durante la presente pandemia. Conclusiones. Hay poca bibliografía sobre herramientas de salud digital enfocadas a epilepsia, pero existen varias que pueden emplearse para luchar contra la brecha de atención, especialmente en esta pandemia mundial de COVID-19 que obliga a las personas y comunidades a mantenerse en cuarentena por la emergencia sanitaria. Es necesario eliminar barreras y facilitar el pronto acceso de los pacientes a estas nuevas tecnologías de información.