With recent calls for their use in combating COVID-19, there are concerns that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine might become unavailable to people who need them.
Adequate numbers of healthy and motivated health professionals are also critical to governments’ effective responses to public health emergencies such as COVID-19.
Findings that are effectively communicated can go a long way to serve the interests of the public. They can help to address social injustices or improve treatments offered to patients.
Researchers and public health officials still don’t know how widespread nor how deadly the coronavirus really is. Random testing is a way to quickly and easily learn this important information.
When a government’s health messaging during a crisis is inconsistent or unrealistic, it engenders the kind of confusion, misinformation and non-cooperation seen in the US and UK.
Cellphone data can show who coronavirus patients interacted with, which can help isolate infected people before they feel ill. But how digital contact tracing is implemented matters.
Governments worldwide have put in place economic and tax relief measures to mitigate the impact on businesses and workers of drastic public health measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
COVID-19 has a long incubation time, and testing can take days to get results. Don’t let continually rising case numbers make you give up on staying at home.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand