Data sharing governance in sub-Saharan Africa during public health emergencies: Gaps and guidance

While the COVID-19 pandemic has captured the attention of the global community since the end of 2019, deadly health pandemics are not new to Africa. Tuberculosis (TB), malaria and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) count amongst other serious diseases that have had a catastrophic impact on the African continent. Effective responses to such pandemics require high-quality, comprehensive data sets that can inform policymaking and enhance healthcare decision-making. While data is driving the information economy in the 21st century, the scarcity in Africa of carefully curated, large epidemiologic data sources and analytical capacity to rapidly identify and understand emerging infectious diseases poses a major challenge to mounting a time-sensitive response to unfolding pandemics. Data access, sharing and transfer between countries are crucial to effectively managing current and future health pandemics. Data access and sharing, however, raises questions about personal privacy, the adequacy of governance mechanisms to regulate cross-border data flows, and ethical issues relating to the collection and use of personal data in the interests of public health. Sub-Saharan Africa's most research-intensive countries are characterised by diverse data management and privacy governance frameworks. Such regional variance can impede time-sensitive data sharing and highlights the need for urgent governance reforms to facilitate effective decision-making in response to rapidly evolving public health threats.Significance: We explore governance considerations that ought to apply to the collection, transfer, and use of data in public health emergencies. Specifically, we provide an overview of the prevailing data sharing governance landscape in selected African countries. In doing so, we identify limitations and gaps that impede effective data collation, sharing and analysis. This work could find utility amongst a range of stakeholders, including bioinformaticians, epidemiologists, artificial intelligence coders, and government decision-makers. While this work focuses primarily on an African context, the issues explored are of universal concern and therefore of relevance to a broader international audience.

Building community in online learning environments: Strategies for high school teachers

This self-study assesses the impact on classroom communities using distance learning activities. Five activities used in the author's high school science classes during the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed based on a bilateral framework interweaving transactional distance (student-teacher interactions) and social interaction (student-student interaction). A reflective narration of activity development leads to a discussion of the effects of activity design on student-teacher and student-student interactions. The intersection between these interactions serves as a foundation for analyzing their impact on the classroom community. A predominant theme is the psychological separation students face when learning remotely and how activity design can intensify or diminish this perceived detachment. This chapter provides an exemplar for other educators to consider how transactional distance and social interaction play a role in the development of their own classroom communities. © 2021, IGI Global.

Why the global south is integral to the development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and antibody therapeutics

The threshold level of immunization coverage needed to confer population immunity for COVID-19 is not yet known, although some settings may require up to 85% of the population to be vaccinated for vaccine-induced population immunity to apply. Achieving such a goal may prompt some countries to contemplate mandating COVID-vaccination. However, attaining a threshold level of population immunity, even via vaccination mandates, is not necessarily a panacea. The emergence of variants that escape immune responses could also render a setting’s previous attainment of population immunity meaningless. The extent to which immune responses protect against emerging variants is of increasing importance and speaks to the need for countries to urgently step up genomic surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 variants and openly share that data timeously. Emerging variants also underscore why COVID-19 candidate vaccines and antibody therapeutics should be trialled in diverse geographical settings. Such approaches will catalyse the development of effective next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and antibody therapeutics. © 2021, University of Toronto. All rights reserved.

COVID-19: Mandatory institutional isolation v. voluntary home self-isolation.

Since community transmission of COVID-19 became established in South Africa, individuals who test positive for COVID-19 and who do not require hospitalisation have been permitted to self-isolate in their homes to reduce the burden on the health system. The Premier of KwaZulu-Natal Province has since announced that self-isolation will no longer be permitted in the province. Instead, mandatory isolation in state-designated isolation sites would apply. This policy change marks a dangerous departure from the country's prevailing position on home-based self-isolation and should not be replicated elsewhere.

Critical care triaging in the shadow of COVID-19: Ethics considerations

Since the World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, COVID-19 infection and the associated mortality have increased exponentially, globally. South Africa (SA) is no exception. Concerns abound over whether SA’s healthcare system can withstand a demand for care that is disproportionate to current resources, both in the state and private health sectors. While healthcare professionals in SA have become resilient and adept at making difficult decisions in the face of resource limitations, a surge in COVID-19 cases could place a severe strain on the country’s critical care services and necessitate unprecedented rationing decisions. This could occur at two critical points: access to ventilation, and withdrawal of intensive care in non-responsive or deteriorating cases. The ethical dimensions of decision-making at both junctures merit urgent consideration.