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Insights on the indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are critical for designing and implementing policies to alleviate the food security burden it may have caused, and for bolstering rural communities against similar macroeconomic shocks in the future. Yet estimating the causal effects of the pandemic is difficult due to its ubiquitous nature and entanglement with other shocks. In this descriptive study, we combine high-resolution satellite imagery to control for plot-level rainfall with household socio-economic panel data from 2014, 2016, 2019 and 2020, to differentiate the effect of the pandemic from climatic shocks on food security in Morogoro, Tanzania. We find evidence of decreased incomes, increased prices of staple foods, and increased food insecurity in 2020 relative to previous years, and link these changes to the pandemic by asking households about their perceptions of COVID-19. Respondents overwhelmingly attribute economic hardships to the pandemic, with perceived impacts differing by asset level.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic shook the world, claimed a lot of lives, incapacitated many, and forced majority of the world into a lockdown. Vaccination is the key strategy to tackling the virus. Objectives: To ascertain the level of vaccination and the difficulties associated with vaccination, among clinical medical students in Enugu, South-East Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A multistage sampling was used to select 160 respondents while questionnaires (hard and soft copy) were administered to the participants. The IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used for data entry and data analysis. Results: There was a poor (16.3%) knowledge, negative perception (66.3%), and poor uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine (20.6%). There were statistically significant relationships between vaccination status, knowledge of vaccine, age, and perception of the vaccine (P=0.000) as well as between level of training and vaccine perception (P=0.03). Conclusion: There was very low level of COVID-19 vaccination in the study population that may be attributable to the low knowledge of the vaccine and the high negative perception. The rush to development of the vaccine, possible side effects, and possible long-term complications may be contributory to the poor uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine among the study respondents.
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Income of farming households with low socio-economic status is a task in emerging nations, rural parts of Nigeria inclusive. In connection with this, the entrance of Covid-19 pandemic posed a grave risk to the economy of the households. This study, therefore, investigate the coping strategies in mitigating Covid-19 pandemic's effect on the farming households' income. Data for the paper were collected from 150 farming household heads, through multistage sampling method, with the use of interview scheduled and analysed using appropriate statistics. The findings showed that many (57.3%) of the respondents were male. The widely practiced coping strategies during the pandemic were rationed spending (=2.63), job diversification (=2.40), reduction in hired labour (=2.36), household food rationing (=2.28) among others. There is substantial relationship between household size (r = 0.075, p = 0.003), annual income (r = 0.033, p = 0.004) and coping strategies practiced at p0.005. It was concluded that the pandemic had great effect on the income of the farming household. The study recommends formulation of necessary, effective and urgent policies for assisting and generating fresh employments and revenue producing prospects for affected households.
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This special issue contains 11 s that discuss recent learnings and developments in healthcare financing from a global perspective. The s cover a range of topics such as the impact of mental illness on poverty and catastrophic health expenditure in India, financing challenges in the American healthcare industry, comparative analysis of health system financing in India and Saudi Arabia, and the contribution of the Ghana National Health Insurance Scheme to inequality in healthcare utilisation. Other s explore the influence of socio-economic status on health financing choices in Jambi Province, households' willingness to pay for community-based health insurance in Bangladesh, and changes in household expenditures during the first wave of COVID-19 in India. The issue also includes discussions on managing the provider-purchaser split in India and reconsidering patient value to create better healthcare.
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The emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant Omicron (B.1.1.529) has been a cause for serious concern worldwide due to its high rate of transmission and number of mutations. During genomic studies in South Africa and Botswana in November 2021, a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 was identified associated with a rapid resurgence of infections in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Omicron variant was identified as a type of concern by the World Health Organization after sequence uploads of the first genome. It was subsequently identified in 87 countries within three weeks. The Omicron variant is a very exceptional virus carrying more than 30 mutations in the spike glycoprotein that are predicted to affect antibody neutralization and spike function. Omicron is highly contagious and spreads faster than previous variants, but may cause less severe symptoms than previous variants. Omicron variant can evade the immune system. It can also evade the vaccine responses developed against COVID-19. Rapid and careful preventive steps, including vaccination, will always be a key for suppression of the Omicron variant. This review summarizes the highly mutated regions, core infectiousness, vaccine elimination, and antibody resistance of the Omicron variant of SARSCoV-2.
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Due to various policies measures to curtail the virus, one of which was lockdown, the occurrence of COVID-19 had a negative impact on the nation's economy, especially the rural smallholder farmers. The study looked into how Covid-19 lockdowns affected Nigerian vegetable production. Descriptive statistics, budgetary approaches, multiple regression analysis, and a Likert scale were all used for the analysis. The findings show that most of vegetable growers in the research region were married women (88.33%). About 70% of respondents have completed at least their primary education. The multiple regression analysis results disclosed that number of extensions contact, farm size, market access and transportation cost were significantly affected the level of vegetable production with positive sign while household size had a negative effect on the vegetable production. The findings also showed that after the COVID-19 lockdown, vegetable production was extremely profitable in the study area, with an average gross margin of 82,836.04 that was statistically higher than the 60,709.97 gross margin generated from vegetable production during COVID-19 and the 71,234.91 gross margin generated prior to COVID-19. The constraints faced by vegetable farmers during the covid - 19 restrictions include: high cost of transportation, price fluctuation, and high cost of input, perishability of the produce and lack of improved seeds. It was concluded that Covid 19 pandemic has greater effect on vegetable production in the study areas.
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COVID-19 lockdown, targeted at preventing the spread of coronavirus, had deleterious effects on physical and psychosocial health. This study examined the association between physical activity (PA), sedentary behaviour, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), loneliness and quality of sleep of 507 Nigerian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown. Five hundred and seven respondents (aged 18-67 years) from 12 States completed an online survey on RedCap. Questionnaires comprising the Stages of Change scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, International Sedentary Assessment Tool, UCLA Loneliness Questionnaire, Short Form-12 Health Survey, and International Physical Activity Questionnaire were used. Respondents were categorised based on exercise behaviour as non-exercisers, non-regular exercisers, or regular exercisers;and based on age into 18-24, 25-34, 35-44 and > 44 years categories. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. About 33.1% of respondents did not meet moderate-to-vigorous PA levels. The physical component of HRQoL was positively associated with total PA (p = 0.04). Among the non-exercisers, the odds of being regular exercisers during pre-COVID-19 lockdown were significantly higher for the 35-44 (odds ratio [OR] = 3.49;95% CI = 1.44, 8.48, p = 0.01) and > 44 years age groups (OR = 2.98;95% CI: 1.16, 7.62, p = 0.02) relative to 18-24 years age category. During COVID-19 lockdown, > 44 (OR = 3.65;95% CI: 1.47, 9.07, p = 0.005), 35-44 (OR = 6.42;95% CI 2.75, 14.96, p = 0.001) and 25-34 (OR = 2.35;95% CI: 1.15, 4.80, p = 0.02) years age categories had significant higher odds of being regular exercisers compared to the 18-24 years age group. There was a high rate of physical inactivity among Nigerian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown, which was directly influenced by the physical components of HRQoL. Older age was an independent predictor of exercise behaviour before and during the COVID-19 lockdown among Nigerian adults.
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Cold storage is expensive for smallholder farmers and seed processors in developing countries. Smallholder farmers continue to resort to traditional storage methods such as polypropylene (PP) bags for maize grain storage. They often dose the grains with chemicals to preserve them. However, hermetic bags have proven to provide superior protection to grains during storage without chemical treatment. With the advent of the COVID-19 virus which distorted many food systems across continents, stakeholders in the grain industry need to adopt better systems to reduce post-harvest food loss and improve food security. In this study, maize grain quality, nutritional content and viability were compared under three storage methods (PP bags with Phostoxin treatment, cold storage, and hermetic bag) over a storage period of four months. The results showed that the hermetic bag maintained the moisture content (MC) of the stored grains with 0.40% variations from the initial MC of 13% at the end of the storage period compared to 0.70% and 1.10% for grains stored under cold storage and in PP bags, respectively. Grain damage after the 4th month of storage in the hermetic bag had only increased by 0.40% from an initial 13.3% before storage compared to an increase of 6% for cold storage, which was attributed to unstable power during the storage period, and 4.30% for grains stored in the PP bag. Carbon dioxide concentration in the hermetic bag was maintained at about 11% throughout the storage period indicating low microbial activity. The hermetic bag technology was identified as the best option for quality preservation during storage of maize grain over the other methods, and its adoption by smallholder farmers in Ghana should be considered.
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This study assessed the knowledge and perception of Nigerians about COVID-19 vaccination. A cross-sectional survey was conducted comprising Health and Non-health workers in Nigeria. The knowledge, attitude, and perception of respondents on COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria was obtained through an online. Logistic regression was employed to determine which factor imparted on COVID-19 vaccination decision. The study showed a significant relationship between COVID-19 vaccination and immigration requirements. The survey showed that 74.07% of the health workers had been vaccinated, while 47.06% of non-Health Workers had been vaccinated. This study recommends that Governments at all levels should create more awareness of the importance of COVID-19 vaccination to increase the number of vaccinated individuals.
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The severity of COVID-19 disease varies substantially between individuals, with some infections being asymptomatic while others are fatal. Several risk factors have been identified that affect the progression of SARS-CoV-2 to severe COVID-19. They include age, smoking and presence of underlying comorbidities such as respiratory illness, HIV, anemia and obesity. Given that respiratory illness is one such comorbidity and is affected by hand hygiene, it is plausible that improving access to hand washing could lower the risk of severe COVID-19 among a population. In this paper, we estimate the potential impact of improved access to hand washing on the risk of respiratory illness and its knock-on impact on the risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease across Zimbabwe. We use a geospatial model that allows us to estimate differential clinical risk at the district level. Results show that the current risk of severe disease is heterogeneous across the country, due to differences in individual characteristics and household conditions. This study demonstrates how household level improved access to handwashing could lead to reductions in the risk of severe COVID-19 of up to 16% from the estimated current levels across all districts. Taken alongside the likely impact on transmission of SARS-CoV-2 itself, as well as countless other pathogens, this result adds further support for the expansion of access to hand washing across the country. It also highlights the spatial differences in risk of severe COVID-19, and thus the opportunity for better planning to focus limited resources in high risk areas in order to potentially reduce the number of severe cases.
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Objective: To assess the global epidemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in January 2023 and the risk of importation. Methods: According to the daily COVID-19 data publicly released by Johns Hopkins University, combined with the travel restrictions published by Sherpa, an epidemiological description method was used to provide a comprehensive and timely assessment of the global epidemic risk through a general overview, a comprehensive assessment of the epidemic trends in each continent and key countries, as well as a comprehensive analysis of the epidemic and travel requirements in 14 neighbouring countries. Results: Compared with the previous month, the number of confirmed cases and deaths respectively decreased by 40.37% and increased by 147.95% globally in January 2023. Daily new confirmed cases showed a decreasing trend, while deaths in all continents stayed stable except Asia in January. The time taken for every 50 million new confirmed cases and 500 thousand deaths globally has increased slightly. The number of deaths in Japan, America, China, and Australia increased rapidly. Zambia, Argentina, New Zealand and Mexico were the countries that showed a sharp rise in the number of deaths in January. Russia was the country with special concern among the 14 neighbouring countries. Conclusion: The global daily new confirmed cases and deaths showed a downward trend in January, but the epidemic situation was prominent in some regions and countries. It is necessary to continuously monitor countries with global focus and establish a communication mechanism with relevant agencies to exchange information and provide timely warnings.
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Food security is one of the targets of Sustainable Development Goals where it focuses explicitly on food by seeking to end hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. However, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown distorted the food system and affected households' capacity to meet its nutritional needs. This study evaluated the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on households in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 265 households. Data was collected using well-structured questionnaire. The analytical techniques were;Descriptive statistics, FDT Food security index and Z-Statistics Test. The findings indicated that 53% of the household heads were female while 47% were male. The mean age of the respondents was 34 years;the mean Household size was 4 persons. Most of the household heads (68%) were not members of cooperative societies. The result indicated that cereals, legumes/grains, oils/fat, roots and tubers, sugar and honey and meats were the most common food consumed by the households daily before and after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Result of food security status indicated that households consumed an average daily calorie intake of 5860.52 which is higher than the estimate of 1707.88 calorie consumed by the food insecure households. Covid-19 pandemic had effect (p<0.001) on the food security status of households. Food secure households showed higher sensitivity to Covid-19 pandemic compared to 0.807 in food insecure households. The minimum and maximum daily calorie intake of 679.67kcal and 2246.79kcal for food insecure in this study is above the minimum and maximum recommended threshold of 587.58 and 2200 kilocalories for households. The study concludes that the understanding of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on food security status of households is important in developing policy measures such as social safety nets, home feeding program, the school feeding program, conditional cash transfers schemes and improved marketing channels that will help mitigate against households falling into food insecurity during similar pandemic in the future.
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Based on a case study in each country, this study documents the views of Mozambican and Tanzanian smallholders regarding Chinese agricultural investments and the extent to which investors abide by their legitimate land tenure rights as defined by the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Forests and Fisheries in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs). The VGGTs offer guidelines to government on how to protect the land tenure of rural communities when land is being acquired for large-scale land investments. The study also assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on smallholders. Due to COVID-19, instead of fieldwork, we conducted telephone interviews with 20 smallholders in Mozambique and 35 in Tanzania. The Mozambican case showed that even when land set aside for investors was not in dispute, smallholders still had unmet expectations, especially regarding investors' corporate social responsibility activities. In the Tanzanian case, even though the land leased by the Chinese investor had been designated as general land, it had laid fallow for a long period, and smallholders had moved back onto the land, only to be displaced in 2017. Although smallholders' views on the investment were mixed, the case underscored the need for government to assess current land use before allocating it to investors - regardless of how the land is classified and especially in areas where land shortages are creating conflict. The cases show that even if communities are consulted about proposed land investments, guidelines need to include clauses that allow for ongoing communications between investors, communities and government officials such that if communities are unsatisfied with the results of the investment, renegotiation is possible. Further, in the event of crises, such as COVID-19, investors should partner with communities and government to limit the extent of harm in communities as a result of the crisis.
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Objective: To evaluate the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake among undergraduates in Kenyan universities. Design: Evaluation design. Setting: University of Nairobi's Main Campus, Nairobi, Kenya. Subjects: Undergraduate students at the University of Nairobi. Background: The fight against COVID-19 pandemic has utilized the information model for behavior change. The prevention behavior to adopt included wearing masks, keeping social distance and the COVID-19 vaccine uptake. However, there is still a knowledge-behavior among high-risk groups like the youth. Based on the Integrated Model of Behavior Prediction, the study sought to evaluate the determinants for the COVID vaccine uptake among undergraduates. Materials & Methods: A survey of undergraduates at the University of Nairobi's Main campus was conducted with a systematic selection of a sample using students class registers. Results: From 384 respondents, the study found that the uptake of coronavirus vaccine was positively correlated with COVID-19 saliency (r=0.211), skills and competency (r=0.146), behavioral intentions (r=0.159) and environmental factors (r=0.211). Conclusion: The uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among undergraduate students in Kenya is determined by all factors in the Integrated Model of Behavior Prediction such as vaccine saliency, behavioral intentions, environmental constraints and skills and competency. Therefore, increasing the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among undergraduates may involve addressing all these factors.
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Study Objective(s): The main study objective was to report on surveillance data from, assess the preparedness and challenges of home-based care for COVID-19 patients and hhealth workers in four Counties (Kakamega, Vihiga, Bungoma, Busia) in Kenya. Design, setting and Participants: The study design and setting used was both qualitative and quantitative and it involved random sampling and snowballing sampling, to obtain data from health workers and patients in Home-Based Isolation. Participants were patients, health workers and county health administrators. The participants included 4 health directors, 20 health care givers who included nurses and clinical officers, 30 patients and 20 recovered patients. Main Finding and Outcome: Main finding was that the four counties have inadequacies to handle a pandemic of such scale as Covid-19, in case it occurs. The study informs stakeholders about the status and preparedness of the counties to handle pandemics and offers solutions. Results and Conclusions: low bed capacity, lack of a corresponded system for Home Based Care (HBC) with/and HBC patients, untimely testing HBC patients and care givers and ineffective contact tracing were observed in all the counties in varied scales. The counties are currently bedevilled with challenges ranging from capacity gaps, human resource deficiency, lack of critical legal and institutional infrastructure, lack of financial support and a conflictual relationship with the national government. The study identified "Hot spots" like the Nairobi-Busia/Malaba highways were the main source of community spread and transmission of coronavirus in two of the Western Kenya Counties.
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This study analyzed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on household income and the determinants of coping strategies in Nigeria, using the combination of the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey data and the fourth wave of the General Household Survey, Panel 2018-2019. The fourth wave of General Household Survey, Panel 2018-2019 data is part of the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) and the National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria collected the data in collaboration with the World Bank and funded by the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey 2020, Baseline was implemented by the National Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the World Bank. The analyses were based on multinomial logistic and multivariate probit models. Multinomial logit regression analysis shows that households that consider the pandemic a substantial threat and households with older heads were more likely to have decreased income while households that received transfer income and self-employed were more likely to have increased income. Several household characteristics exhibited different levels of influence on the choice of coping strategies during the lockdown. Therefore, policy options and support facilities should be developed to foster meaningful (wage/self) employment and coping strategies to achieve optimal results in response to the pandemic.
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Coronavirus is a novel virus that hit the world starting from developed countries to under-developed countries. Ghana is amongst the countries in Africa that observed some level of confinement by their government leading to the shutdown of various institutions including schools. The resulting impact of the policy saw students being more vulnerable to food insecurity and related issues. This paper examines the effect of Coronavirus on students' food insecurity status at the University of Cape Coast. The research design adopted for this study was the cross-sectional survey design with the University of Cape Coast, Ghana being the study area. A total of 291 students were randomly selected to participate in the study. Structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The findings of the study show that socioeconomic characteristics of students and food insecurity status showed no association. Students rated the extent of the effect of the pandemic as moderate and the major area of academic life affected was the change in the academic calendar. Class attendance was the most perceived effect of the pandemic. Students also reported that they were rarely food insecure. The study further found out that the best predictors of students' food insecurity were age, current level, insurance and employment status. The major challenge faced by students during Coronavirus was difficulties in their academics. This led students to adopt mitigation strategies such as online studies, paying heel to Coronavirus protocols, and self-support to mitigate the pandemic's impact. The study concluded that the academic activities of students of the University of Cape Coast were affected moderately by the pandemic and therefore recommends that the University of Cape Coast should improve its information and communication technology infrastructure to make online classes easier and the school should increase funding opportunity to less privilege students.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world, especially at the community level. It has not only affected the way community members interact, but also how they relate. Objectives: To examine the role of community awareness in reducing the transmission of COVID-19;to investigate the effect of the engagement of Community Health Workers on the reduction of the transmission of COVID-19 positive cases;to examine the role of government restrictions in reducing COVID19 transmissions among the communities living and to analyse the measures put in place to address challenges facing the community-based responses in addressing COVID-19 transmission in Kisumu East Sub County. Methodology: The study adopted Descriptive Case Study Design. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS. Qualitative data was collected from the interviews and was analysed using the thematic content analysis technique. Findings: The study established that community awareness played a great role in reducing transmissions of COVID-19. It also established that the measures that the government put in place to reduce community transmissions were to a large extent successful. Lastly, the study established that the government stepped up measures to address the challenges of COVID-19 and these measures included screening and vaccinations. Recommendations: It recommends that the government puts emphasis on community-based response strategies when it comes to health interventions. It is expected that the findings of the study will be of benefit to policy makers, health planners as well as scholars in Development Studies.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact which was by the Covid-19 pandemic in the hospitality industry of South Africa. South Africa has one of the largest and highest developed hospitality industries in the region. The hospitality sector in South Africa employs 5% of the active age group and contributes around 10.3% revenue income to the government of South Africa. Unfortunately, South Africa emerged as one of the hot spots of the Covid-19 virus infections. As a way of controlling the pandemic, hard lockdowns were introduced starting on the 27th of March 2020. The sealing of the country's port of entries brought the hospitality sector to its knees. This study evaluates impact of Covid-19 on the business sector and the labour market in South Africa focussing on the hospitality industry. The study used secondary data from survey reports from South Africa's National Department of Tourism, (Statssa, Google mobility and other authoritative relevant sources). The study concluded that the pandemic had a devastating effect on areas such as labour, the overall business, the labour market, and the hospitality sector. The most affected areas from the hospitality sector were aviation, maritime, special events, accommodation, hotels, restaurants, lodges, recreational parks, and national parks. When COVID-19 came some businesses in the hospitality sector were servicing loans borrowed from financial institutions. The findings of the study indicated the need for a strong financial backup to cushion business during pandemics for the hospitality sector, tax holidays and adoption of stringent health protocols to assist the industry recovery and make business more profitable. The theoretical implication of the study is that it will expose the impact of COVID-19 on the business sector and the labour market in South Africa with a focus on the hospitality industry, and to map a future mitigatory way to overcome such natural calamities towards the business sector.
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The Sugar Milling Research Institute NPC (SMRI) has provided the South and southern African sugar industry with analytical services for more than 50 years. The need for an internationally-recognised quality assurance system to provide SMRI members and their customers with the necessary confidence in the results that they were receiving was recognised more than 25 years ago, and it culminated in the SMRI Analytical Services Division achieving ISO/IEC Guide 25:1990 accreditation in 1998. The SMRI analytical laboratory has since successfully progressed through the ISO/IEC 17025:1999 and ISO/IEC 17025:2005 iterations to the current ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard. The SMRI has therefore had to continually expand the scope of its systems over the past 25 years, in order to match the updated requirements. The system is used for the analysis of weekly composite mixed juice and final molasses samples from all the SMRI South African member mills and some southern African member mills. Similarly, raw and white sugar analyses are conducted, with the reporting of results to the members' specifications. Critical to the accuracy of these results is the continual auditing and monitoring of the methods, equipment and chemical solutions that are used in the analysis methods. This is achieved by using Certified Reference Materials and control samples, as well as participating in internationally-recognised analytical proficiency schemes. Critical to the success of the laboratory in maintaining its accreditation is the competence of the laboratory staff who undergo continual training and assessments. This was demonstrated in 2020 and 2021, when they were able to continue providing the necessary services, despite the challenges faced during the Covid pandemic.