Healthcare Workers' Knowledge and Attitude Toward Telemedicine During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Global Survey.

Introduction Telemedicine is the utilization of communication technologies to provide healthcare services remotely. It has an increasingly pivotal role in enabling medical professionals to extend the provision of care to patients facing geographical barriers. The benefits of telemedicine have become more apparent during the coronavirus pandemic. To maximize its application, it is crucial to ascertain the understanding and attitudes of healthcare professionals toward its use. The aim of this study is to collect data and evaluate the current knowledge and perceptions of medical staff toward the use of telemedicine. Methods In this cross-sectional study, we conducted a global survey of 1091 healthcare workers. Data were collected through a questionnaire after an extensive literature review. Frequency, percentages, and cumulative percentages were calculated to portray the profile of the participants. Results Of the respondents, the majority had heard about (90.9%), witnessed (65.3%), or were familiar with (74.6%) how telemedicine is used in practice. Seventy-two point two percent (72.2%) were familiar with the tools that may be used in this technology. The familiarity with telemedicine was noted to be consistently higher in those with a medical degree and experience of less than five years. Furthermore, attitudes toward providing healthcare remotely were generally positive with 80% thinking that telemedicine reduced staff workload, 80.6% reporting that it reduces the unnecessary transportation cost, and 83% believing that it saves clinicians' time. However, 20% of respondents said that telemedicine increases staff workload and 40.5% of healthcare workers believed telemedicine threatens information confidentiality and patient privacy. Conclusion Although telemedicine is a novel and emerging practice in many countries, it appears to have a promising contribution to healthcare services. This is particularly important during a pandemic, as it ensures effective healthcare with the maintenance of social distancing measures. Moreover, the respondents of this study showed good knowledge and positivity in their attitude toward telemedicine.

Emergence of highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants in Bangladesh: the need for systematic genetic surveillance as a public health strategy.

Bangladesh, a low-middle-income country in South Asia is facing one of its worst public health emergencies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The increase in the number of cases from the disease, since the second half of March 2021, can potentially cause the health system overload, and has, as one of the main reasons, the non-compliance with measures of social distance and the emergence of the variants of concern in the country. This increase in the contagion curve can also provide a favorable environment for the occurrence of more mutations in the structure and genome of the virus. Therefore, there is an urge to carry out genomic surveillance programs in order to identify, monitor and characterize these variants, and understand whether the vaccines currently used are effective against them.