Medical Oxygen as a Life-Saving Medicine: A rapid review of the oxygen landscape and innovative efforts in the World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Region in Response to COVID-19 and Beyond.

Background: Medical oxygen is an essential treatment for life-threatening hypoxemic conditions and is commonly indicated for the clinical management of many leading causes of mortality. Many countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) lacked robust medical oxygen systems prior to the COVID-19 (corona virus disease) pandemic and this situation was exacerbated by increased needs, particularly in remote and rural health facilities, resulting in many unfortunate deaths. The aim of this article is to describe the oxygen landscape in the region and the regional initiatives undertaken by countries and WHO. Methodology: We conducted a rapid review to synthesize the available literature on the needs and availability of oxygen and its related resources and the regional initiatives undertaken. We conducted search in PubMed, relevant WHO and World Bank websites, and in general using google to understand the health of conditions that could benefit from the availability of medical oxygen, oxygen related resources including health workforce available for support and usage of medical oxygen, and the initiatives by WHO, countries and partners to improve the situation. We used a snowballing technique and reviewed all available databases for reports, surveys, assessments, and studies related to medical oxygen, besides WHO internal records, assessments, and consultation reports. Results: The data on oxygen availability, supply demand gap, infrastructure facilities, and human resources were sparse. The regional initiatives have led to increase in resources, including human resources and oxygen production infrastructure. The Live Oxygen Platform (LOP), contributed to improved availability of quality data needed for supply demand assessments. Conclusion: A regional enterprise strategy to promote sustainable, decentralized, and contextualized production, supply, and monitoring of oxygen together with human resource support including training and placement by WHO, partners, and governments contributed to improved availability of oxygen in the region. Additionally, with the LOP, governments, WHO, and partners have access to better data availability for policy decision making and timely resource allocation.

Health workforce capacity of intensive care units in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.

OBJECTIVE: The onset of COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for functioning and equipped intensive care units (ICUs) with staff trained in operating them. In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, this also triggered the need for assessing the available capacities of ICUs and health workforce so that appropriate strategies can be developed to address emerging challenges of staff shortages in the wake of COVID-19. To address this need, a scoping review on the health workforce capacity of intensive care units in the Eastern Mediterranean Region was conducted. METHODS: A scoping review methodology as outlined by Cochrane was followed. Available literature and different data sources were reviewed. Database includes Pubmed (medline,Plos included), IMEMR, Google Scholar for peer-reviewed literature, and Google for grey literature such as relevant website of ministries, national and international organization. The search was performed for publications on intensive care unit health workers for each of the EMR countries in the past 10 years (2011-2021). Data from included studies was charted, analysed and reported in a narrative format. A brief country survey was also conducted to supplement the findings of the review. It included quantitative and qualitative questions about number of ICU beds, physicians and nurses, training programs as well as challenges faced by ICU health workforce. RESULTS: Despite limited data availability, this scoping review was able to capture information important for the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Following major themes appeared in findings and results were synthesized for each category: facility and staffing, training and qualification, working conditions/environment and performance appraisal. Shortage of intensive care specialist physicians and nurses were in majority of countries. Some countries offer training programmes, mostly for physicians, at post-graduate level and through short courses. High level of workload, emotional and physical burnout and stress were a consistent finding across all countries. Gaps in knowledge were found regarding procedures common for managing critically ill patients as well as lack of compliance with guidelines and recommendations. CONCLUSION: The literature on ICU capacities in EMR is limited, however, our study identified valuable information on health workforce capacity of ICUs in the region. While well-structured, up-to-date, comprehensive and national representative data is still lacking in literature and in countries, there is a clearly emerging need for scaling up the health workforce capacities of ICUs in EMR. Further research is necessary to understand the situation of ICU capacity in EMR. Plans and efforts should be made to build current and future health workforce.

Cellulitis Complicated with Bacteremia Due to Sphingobacterium Species: A Report of Two Cases and a Literature Review.

Sphingobacterium species rarely cause human infection. We herein report two cases of cellulitis complicated with bacteremia due to this genus. The patients, both in their 70s and receiving corticosteroid therapy for their underlying diseases, had antecedent skin injuries in their affected limbs. The patients' symptoms improved promptly and completely with the administration of cefazolin, which did not inhibit the growth of isolated organisms at a concentration of 4 µg/mL.