ABSTRACT
Background: The economic crisis in Lebanon, a middle-income eastern Mediterranean country, has been threatening the health of the local population. This review will look at the impact of the economic crisis and COVID-19 on health and healthcare in the country, discussing food insecurity and water shortages, and the hospital crisis for what concerns medications, electricity shortages and workforce issues. Methodology: Peer Reviewed Literature produced between 2015 and 2021, indexed in Pubmed, Scopus and Google Scholar was used to compile this short report. News and governmental reports, alongside reports of NGOs like Médicins sans frontières were also collected; these were analysed for the production of this short report. Results: The challenges and public health consequences caused by the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic in Lebanon were identified and commented upon. From food insecurity and water shortages, to the Beirut port explosion and the 2021 lack of fuel and electricity, it was found that the health and well-being of the Lebanese population is currently being threatened from many points of view. With food inflation rates rapidly escalating in 2020 and peaking at 441% in October, new-born and infant milk being non-existent and 20 hour power cuts daily, the situation in Lebanon does not seem to be improving. The country needs to receive international help to relief the population from these synergetic crises. Conclusion: Long-term economic reforms with an emphasis on employment should be at the forefront of the government's priority list. International help should also be provided to prevent disasters like food insecurity and electricity shortages from posing threats to the lives and the wellbeing of the people in Lebanon again.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic highlighted the worldwide lack of surgical masks and personal protective equipment, which represent the main defense available against respiratory diseases as COVID-19. At the time, masks shortage was dramatic in Italy, the first European country seriously hit by the pandemic: aiming to address the emergency and to support the Italian industrial reconversion to the production of surgical masks, a multidisciplinary team of the University of Bologna organized a laboratory to test surgical masks according to European regulations. The group, driven by the expertise of chemical engineers, microbiologists, and occupational physicians, set-up the test lines to perform all the functional tests required. The laboratory started its activity on late March 2020, and as of the end of December of the same year 435 surgical mask prototypes were tested, with only 42 masks compliant to the European standard. From the analysis of the materials used, as well as of the production methods, it was found that a compliant surgical mask is most likely composed of three layers, a central meltblown filtration layer and two external spunbond comfort layers. An increase in the material thickness (grammage), or in the number of layers, does not improve the filtration efficiency, but leads to poor breathability, indicating that filtration depends not only on pure size exclusion, but other mechanisms are taking place (driven by electrostatic charge). The study critically reviewed the European standard procedures, identifying the weak aspects; among the others, the control of aerosol droplet size during the bacterial filtration test results to be crucial, since it can change the classification of a mask when its performance lies near to the limiting values of 95 or 98%.