ABSTRACT
Objective: This study aimed to document caregivers' perceptions and preferences regarding coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) vaccination among children. Methods: This cross-sectional study analyzed 272 caregivers with 347 children (aged 1-18 years) attending a subdistrict rural hospital in February-March 2022. Results: Vaccine acceptance was high (93.4%). Although fear of side effects was the most common reason not to vaccinate, a higher proportion of caregivers willing to vaccinate children had consulted healthcare personnel to clarify queries related to side effects. Familiar vaccination sites, where children had previously received routine immunization (RI), such as government hospitals, and Anganwadis (community-based childcare centers) where vaccines were available free of cost on all working days, were the most preferred for COVID-19 vaccination, followed by schools. Only 5.5% of the caregivers preferred private hospitals. Vaccination at home was desired for chronically ill and out-of-school children. RI as per age was associated with the willingness to vaccinate. In addition to protection from COVID-19, other benefits identified by willing parents were being able to attend schools, recreation, and travel. Conclusions: Out-of-school children, children left or missed out in RI, and children with chronic illness can be at risk of being left out for COVID-19 vaccination and can be included by expanding vaccination services house-to-house as in adults. Media engagement and communication must be interactive to address issues, such as fear of side effects, and promote additional benefits of vaccination.
ABSTRACT
Background: In each geographic region, risk of new cases of COVID19 are driven by internal factors such as agent, host, and environment characteristics, as well as external factors, such as population mobility and cross border transmission of disease. COVID19 control measures are best implemented when local governments and health teams are well aware of these internal and external risks. These risks are dynamic in nature and hence need to be reviewed at regular intervals. The study conducted to develop a composite spatiotemporal Hazard Index comprising of three factors – presence of susceptible population, population density and presence of active cases with corresponding growth rates, to rank areas within an administrative boundary by their fortnightly risk of active COVID19 cases. Methods: Using Principal Component Analysis, the weights of each of these factors were determined and applied to transformed values of factors in the districts of Gujarat state for months of January to July 2021. Hazard Index thus obtained was used to rank the districts. Results: Spearman correlation between the Hazard Index and number of active cases 15 days later was moderate and significant (p<0.01) throughout the study period. Conclusion: Hazard Index can predict Districts at highest risk of active cases in the given time period. These districts with high Hazard Index would require different control measures, depending on the factor that resulted in higher index value. © 2022, MedSci Publications. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
In India, the nationwide lockdown was implemented from March to May 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic. As of March 2020, there were 13.08 lakh PLHIV availing ART free of cost from Government run ART centres, To maintain the continuum of care, National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) of India adopted Multi Months Dispensation (MMD) through ART centres and Community Dispensation of ART through the various Targeted Interventions (TI) and Community Based Organizations (CBO). A mixed methods study was designed, with desk review of programmatic data, semi qualitative interviews of 250 PLHIV and 15 In-Depth Interviews of ART centre and TI/CBO staff to document the process, strengths and challenges of these strategies in Surat city of South Gujarat. While administrative, technical and networking strengths were documented, manpower constraints, interrupted laboratory services, migration and relatively passive role of PLHIV in availing services were major challenges described in this study among several others.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , HIV Infections , COVID-19/epidemiology , Communicable Disease Control , HIV Infections/epidemiology , Humans , India/epidemiology , PandemicsABSTRACT
Introduction: India has highest burden of tuberculosis cases both drug sensitive as well as drug resistance in the world. Covid-19 pandemic had affected infectious diseases like TB, HIV, Malaria in developing countries like India. Here, we aimed to study the impact of lockdown on diagnosis and management of tuberculosis in Surat, Gujarat, India due to SARS-Cov-2. Method: Cross sectional survey of Tuberculosis patients regarding problems faced during lockdown involving all 18 TB unit of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) was done, 15 patients were randomly selected by simple random sampling of line list of patients of each unit and secondary data analysis, data was collected from District Tuberculosis centre for rural part and SMC for urban part.