Charting current evidence on the health and non-health benefits and equity impacts of pandemic/epidemic individual-level economic relief programmes: a scoping review protocol.

INTRODUCTION: The emergence of a regional or global scale infectious disease outbreak often requires the implementation of economic relief programmes in affected jurisdictions to sustain societal welfare and, presumably, population health. While economic relief programmes are considered essential during a regional or global health crisis, there is no clear consensus in the literature about their health and non-health benefits and their impact on promoting equity. Thus, our objective is to map the current state of the literature with respect to the types of individual-level economic relief programmes implemented during infectious disease outbreaks and the impact of these programmes on the effectiveness of public health measures, individual and population health, non-health benefits and equity. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Our scoping review is guided by the updated Arksey and O'Malley scoping review framework. Eligible studies will be identified in eight electronic databases and grey literature using text words and subject headings of the different pandemic and epidemic infectious diseases that have occurred, and economic relief programmes. Title and abstract screening and full-text screening will be conducted independently by two trained study reviewers. Data will be extracted using a pretested data extraction form. The charting of the key findings will follow a thematic narrative approach. Our review findings will provide in-depth knowledge on whether and how benefits associated with pandemic/epidemic individual-level economic relief programmes differ across social determinants of health factors.This information is critical for decision-makers as they seek to understand the role of pandemic/epidemic economic mitigation strategies to mitigate the health impact and reduce inequity gap. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Since the scoping review methodology aims to synthesise evidence from literature, this review does not require ethical approval. Findings of our review will be disseminated to health stakeholders at policy meetings and conferences; published in a peer-review scientific journal; and disseminated on various social media platforms.

A Protocol for a Scoping Review Comparative Bibliometric Analysis of Infectious Disease Research in Africa.

Introduction: Evidence on authorship trends of health research conducted about or in Africa shows that there is a lack of local researchers in the first and last authorship positions, with high income country collaborations taking up these positions. The differences in authorship calls into question power imbalances in global health research and who benefits from the production of new discoveries and innovations. Health studies may further go on to inform policy and clinical practice within the region having an impact on public health. This paper aims to compare the differences in authorship between COVID-19 and relevant infectious diseases in Africa. Materials and Methods: We will conduct a bibliometric analysis comparing authorship for COVID-19 research during a public health emergency with authorship for four other infectious diseases of relevance to Africa namely: Ebola, Zika Virus (ZIKV), Tuberculosis (TB) and Influenza. Our scoping review will follow the framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley and reviewed by Levac et al. We will search MEDLINE (Ovid), African Index Medicus (AIM), Eastern Mediterranean Region (IMEMR) Index Medicus, Embase (Ovid), and Web of Science (Clarivate). We will compare the different trends of disease research between the selected diseases. This study is registered with OSF registries and is licensed with the Academic Free License version 3.0. The open science registration number is 10.17605/OSF.IO/5ZPGN.

Estimating healthcare resource needs for COVID-19 patients in Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION: continuous assessment of healthcare resources during the COVID-19 pandemic will help in proper planning and to prevent an overwhelming of the Nigerian healthcare system. In this study, we aim to predict the effect of COVID-19 on hospital resources in Nigeria. METHODS: we adopted a previously published discrete-time, individual-level, health-state transition model of symptomatic COVID-19 patients to the Nigerian healthcare system and COVID-19 epidemiology in Nigeria by September 2020. We simulated different combined scenarios of epidemic trajectories and acute care capacity. Primary outcomes included the expected cumulative number of cases, days until depletion resources and the number of deaths associated with resource constraints. Outcomes were predicted over a 60-day time horizon. RESULTS: in our best-case epidemic trajectory, which implies successful implementation of public health measures to control COVID-19 spread, assuming all three resource scenarios, hospital resources would not be expended within the 60-days time horizon. In our worst-case epidemic trajectory, assuming conservative resource scenario, only ventilated ICU beds would be depleted after 39 days and 16 patients were projected to die while waiting for ventilated ICU bed. Acute care resources were only sufficient in the three epidemic trajectory scenarios when combined with a substantial increase in healthcare resources. CONCLUSION: substantial increase in hospital resources is required to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, even as the infection growth rate declines. Given Nigeria's limited health resources, it is imperative to focus on maintaining aggressive public health measures as well as increasing hospital resources to reduce COVID-19 transmission further.