ABSTRACT
Thrombosis and coagulopathy are emerging as the most lethal, yet silent killer complications associated with COVID-19. The evidence for the complications from clinical, imaging, and laboratory test results is overwhelming. Both clinical experiences in Kenya and publications from afflicted countries indicate that anticoagulation is associated with decreased mortality. Despite the evidence, anticoagulation in COVID-19 patients is neither universally practiced in Kenya nor incorporated in the Country guidelines for the disease management at the moment. The Kenya Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (KSTH) has reviewed the evidence from original sources and consensus statements of other professional societies regarding the issue and found there is a strong case for adoption. In response, a guideline for diagnosis and management of thrombosis and coagulopathy is herein recommended for adoption.
ABSTRACT
Background: Open data on the locations and services provided by health facilities in some countries have allowed the development of software tools contributing to COVID-19 response. The UN and WHO encourage countries to make health facility location data open, to encourage use and improvement. We provide a summary of open access health facility location data in Africa using re-useable code. We aim to support data analysts developing software tools to address COVID-19 response in individual countries. In Africa there are currently three main sources of such data;1) direct from national ministries of health, 2) a database for sub-Saharan Africa collated and published by a team from KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme and now hosted by WHO, and 3) The Global Healthsites Mapping Project in collaboration with OpenStreetMap. Methods: We searched for and documented official national facility location data that were openly available. We developed re-useable open-source R code to summarise and visualise facility location data by country from the three sources. This re-useable code is used to provide a web user interface allowing data exploration through maps and plots of facility type. Results: Out of 53 African countries, seven provide an official open facility list that can be downloaded and analysed reproducibly. Considering all three sources, there are over 185,000 health facility locations available for Africa. However, there are differences and overlaps between sources and a lack of data on capacities and service provision.