COVID-19: Utilizing local experience to suggest optimal global strategies to prevent and control the pandemic

Abstract

In December 2019, an outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), an acute respiratory illness caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was detected in Wuhan, China. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic and advised all countries to take decisive actions to prevent and control the outbreak. Thus far, as of 16 April 2020, COVID-19 has spread to 213 countries or territories and resulted in 1,954,724 confirmed cases and 126,140 deaths globally. There is no effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19, and treatment options are still experimental and unproven. Patients are just managed with supportive care and antibiotics against secondary bacterial infections. To fight this pandemic, many high-income countries, including Saudi Arabia, locked their borders, started evacuating their citizens from other countries and imposed different degrees of blockade locally to promote social distancing and, hence, controlling the spread of the virus, SARS-CoV-2. In this editorial, we will discuss the adequacy of such measures to control COVID-19 epidemic locally and globally.

Mahmud, I., & Al-Mohaimeed, A. . (2020). COVID-19: Utilizing local experience to suggest optimal global strategies to prevent and control the pandemic. International Journal of Health Sciences, 14(3). Retrieved from https://pub.qu.edu.sa/index.php/journal/article/view/5008
Copyright and license info is not available

Author Biography

Ilias Mahmud, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, Qassim University

Dr. Ilias Mahmud is an Assistant Professor at the College of Public Health and Health Informatics, Qassim University, KSA. He has a PhD in Epidemiology and Population Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK; a Master of Public Health from the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, Dhaka, Bangladesh; and a Bachelor(Hons) in Occupational Therapy from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has over a decade teaching and research experience in Public Health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, Bangladesh Health Professions Institute and Qassim University. 

Most read articles by the same author(s)