The potential effectiveness of the WHO International Health Regulations capacity requirements on control of the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study of 114 countries.

OBJECTIVES: We examined if the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR) capacities were associated with better COVID-19 pandemic control. DESIGN: Observational study. SETTING: Population-based study of 114 countries. PARTICIPANTS: General population. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: For each country, we extracted: (1) the maximum rate of COVID-19 incidence increase per 100,000 population over any 5-day moving average period since the first 100 confirmed cases; (2) the maximum 14-day cumulative incidence rate since the first case; (3) the incidence and mortality within 30 days since the first case and first COVID-19-related death, respectively. We retrieved the 13 country-specific International Health Regulations capacities and constructed linear regression models to examine whether these capacities were associated with COVID-19 incidence and mortality, controlling for the Human Development Index, Gross Domestic Product, the population density, the Global Health Security index, prior exposure to SARS/MERS and Stringency Index. RESULTS: Countries with higher International Health Regulations score were significantly more likely to have lower incidence (ß coefficient -24, 95% CI -35 to -13) and mortality (ß coefficient -1.7, 95% CI -2.5 to -1.0) per 100,000 population within 30 days since the first COVID-19 diagnosis. A similar association was found for the other incidence outcomes. Analysis using different regression models controlling for various confounders showed a similarly significant association. CONCLUSIONS: The International Health Regulations score was significantly associated with reduction in rate of incidence and mortality of COVID-19. These findings inform design of pandemic control strategies, and validated the International Health Regulations capacities as important metrics for countries that warrant evaluation and improvement of their health security capabilities.

Un comentario sobre el artículo: Brotes, epidemias, eventos y otros términos epidemiológicos de uso cotidiano / A comment about the article: Brotes [outbreaks], epidemias [epidemics], eventos [events], and other Epidemiological Terms of Daily Usage

Con regocijo leí el artículo de los autores Otto Peláez y Pedro Más, publicado en el reciente número de la revista, titulado "Brotes, epidemias, eventos y otros términos epidemiológicos de uso cotidiano"1, que consideré muy oportuno para esclarecer conceptos y definiciones epidemiológicas en estos tiempos de pandemias y, particularmente, de la epidemia nacional de la COVID-19. Según la opinión de los propios autores, este artículo se elaboró por la necesidad especial de actualizar conceptos, relacionados con la vigilancia y el control epidemiológico, que están siendo utilizados por técnicos e instituciones oficiales y organismos internacionales de forma inexacta por su sinonimia.1) En ese sentido, lo califico como un documento básicamente didáctico, que deberá estimular algunos comentarios de los especialistas y los profesionales de las diferentes disciplinas que estudian los problemas de salud de...(AU)

Which Country is Truly Developed? COVID-19 has Answered the Question.

The developed countries of the world were ill-prepared for the pandemic that they have suffered. When we compare developed to developing countries, the sophisticated parameters we use do not necessarily address the weaknesses in the healthcare systems of developed countries that make them susceptible to crises like the present pandemic. We strongly suggest that better preparation for such events is necessary for a country to be considered developed.

Investigation of a cross-border case of Lassa fever in West Africa.

BACKGROUND: Infectious disease prevention and control strategies require a coordinated, transnational approach. To establish core capacities of the International Health Regulations (IHR), the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy. Epidemic-prone Lassa fever, caused by Lassa virus, is an endemic disease in the West African countries of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Benin, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo and Nigeria. It's one of the major public health threats in these countries. Here it is reported an epidemiological investigation of a cross-border case of Lassa fever, which demonstrated the importance of strengthened capacities of IHR and IDSR. CASE PRESENTATION: On January 9th, 2018 a 35-year-old Guinean woman with fever, neck pain, body pain, and vomiting went to a hospital in Ganta, Liberia. Over the course of her illness, the case visited various health care facilities in both Liberia and Guinea. A sample collected on January 10th was tested positive for Lassa virus by RT-PCR in a Liberian laboratory. The Guinean Ministry of Health (MoH) was officially informed by WHO Country Office for Guinea and for Liberia. CONCLUSION: This case report revealed how an epidemic-prone disease such as Lassa fever can rapidly spread across land borders and how such threat can be quickly controlled with communication and collaboration within the IHR framework.

[THE STATE OF INTERNATIONAL LEGAL REGULATION OF CADAVERIC DONATION: ON THE PATH TO UNIFICATION (REVIEW)].

The purpose of this study is to assess the current state of international legal regulation of cadaveric donation and determine the possibility of its further unification. Therefore, the subject of the study was the legal regulation of cadaveric donation as a certain part of medicine. In particular, the work examined the norms of international law, as well as the separate provisions of the national legislation of different countries, aimed at regulating relations in the field of cadaveric donation. Also analyzed the results of scientific research on this subject. During the study, different methods of cognition were used. In particular, the historical method allowed to establish trends in the development of legal regulation of cadaveric donation. The comparative-legal method has given an opportunity to highlight the peculiarities of national regulation of relations associated with cadaveric retrieval of organs in some individual countries and correlated them to international legal experience. The statistical method has given an opportunity to establish the effectiveness of the application of a legal construct, its ability to overcome the "deficit" of the bodies and a fair distribution between the recipients. On the basis of the dialectical method, the conclusion was drawn about the possibility of developing common standards for the legal regulation of relations in the area of cadaveric donation. Other methods were used in this work, including: formal-logical, dogmatic, modeling, analysis and synthesis. The result of the study was the conclusion about the need and the possibility of forming a single international standards for the legal regulation of cadaveric donation, and in the context of globalization, there is an urgent need to create a universal Model code on donation and transplantation.

Measuring Global Health Security: Comparison of Self- and External Evaluations for IHR Core Capacity.

In 2016, the World Health Organization moved from using only a self-assessment to monitor national implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) to introducing an external evaluation process. In this article, we use preliminary findings from the published Joint External Evaluations to identify if and how the external evaluations differ from IHR self-assessments conducted in the same year. We found that of the 32 countries for which data were available, external assessment scores are consistently 1 to 1.5 points lower than self-assessment scores. This shows the importance of external evaluations and emphasizes that even more must be done to build sufficient capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to public health emergencies around the world.