News (peer reviewed)
3 June 2021
Sinha P, et al
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Treatment with tocilizumab in combination with dexamethasone appears to be cost effective in reducing COVID-19-related deaths, according to findings of a US study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.A decision-tree model populated with data from the randomised RECOVERY trial, which was conducted in the UK, was used to evaluate the cost effectiveness of tocilizumab plus dexamethasone, compared with dexamethasone alone or best supportive care (BSC) alone, in patients with severe COVID-19 infection. Cost effectiveness was assessed from a US perspective. Assumed drug costs were $5304 for tocilizumab and $12 for dexamethasone, and assumed annual healthcare costs in COVID-19 survivors were $6929 per year.Tocilizumab plus dexamethasone, dexamethasone alone and BSC alone were estimated to achieve a gain 9.36, 8.66 and 8.43 QALYs, respectively, at a total cost of $83 130,...
Journal Article
28 May 2021
Gonçalves, Diego Assis, Ribeiro, Victória, Gualberto, Ana, Peres, Fernanda, Luconi, Michaela, Gameiro, Jacy
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1. IntroductionThe COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) has been declared as a pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization [1]. The disease is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which belongs to the Coronaviridae family. To date, more than 70 million people worldwide have been confirmed to be infected, with 1,599,704 deaths [2–4]. Currently, Brazil is the country with the second highest number of fatalities and third highest total cases, 180,437 and 6,836,227, respectively [2, 5]. More than 50,000 new cases keep on being reported per day in the country [5], and a high number of adults are considered at risk for severe COVID-19 in Brazil [6].Since the beginning of the pandemic, studies have shown that the number of patients requiring intensive care, as well as the number of deaths, is greater among individuals over 60 years of age....
Editorial
28 May 2021
Briggs, Andrew, Vassall, Anna
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Focusing only on cases and deaths hides the pandemic’s lasting health burden on people, societies and economies.
Journal Article
20 May 2021
Sobral, Margarida, Santa Rosa, Bárbara, Silvestre, Margarida
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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic worldwide consequences affecting social, economic and healthcare systems. Considering that the number of infected patients requiring admission to intensive care units far exceeded the available resources, healthcare professionals have had to face challenging decisions concerning who should benefit from the limited resources and who should not. In this context, after a careful ethical reflection, we propose some principles to be adopted when dealing with allocation resource decisions, based on core ethical values. Ideally, these strategies should be established and integrated into institutional policies before a crisis scenario, in order to anticipate a potential new public health emergency and prevent possible tragic consequences.
Preprint
20 May 2021
Kazungu, Jacob, Munge, Kenneth, Werner, Kalin, Risko, Nicholas, Ortiz, Andres Vecino,Were, Vincent
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Background: Healthcare workers are at a higher risk of COVID-19 infection during care encounters compared to the general population. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) have been shown to protect COVID-19 among healthcare workers, however, Kenya has faced PPE shortages that can adequately protect all healthcare workers. We, therefore, examined the health and economic consequences of investing in PPE for healthcare workers in Kenya. Methods: We conducted a cost-effectiveness and return on investment (ROI) analysis using a decision-analytic model following the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) guidelines. We examined two outcomes: 1) the cost per healthcare worker death averted, and 2) the cost per healthcare worker COVID-19 case averted. We performed a multivariate sensitivity analysis using 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations. Results:...
Journal Article
19 May 2021
Loewenson, Rene
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The global political economy is generating new forms and growing shares of informal, insecure, and precarious labor, adding to histories of insecure work and an externalization of social costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the consequences of ignoring such signals in terms of the increased risk and vulnerability of insecure labor. This paper explores how such trends are generating intersecting adverse health outcomes for workers, communities, and environments and the implications for breaking siloes and building links between the paradigms, science, practice, and tools for occupational health, public health, and eco-health. Applying the principle of controlling hazards at the source is argued in this context to call for an understanding of the upstream production and socio-political factors that are jointly affecting the nature of work and employment and their impact on...
Senior Lecturer in Health Economics and Guest Professor in Demographic Economics
Rui Dang
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My research interests are health economics, health policy, population economics , applied microeconometrics and quantitative methods in public health and clinical research.
Journal Article
18 May 2021
Kuppalli, Krutika, Gala, Pooja, Cherabuddi, Kartikeya, Kalantri, S P, Mohanan, Manoj, Mukherjee, Bhramar, Pinto, Lancelot, Prakash, Manu, Pramesh, C S, Rathi, Sahaj, Pai, Nitika Pant, Yamey, Gavin, Pai, Madhukar
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India’s current COVID-19 surge is an unprecedented public health crisis. With exponential growth in the number of daily COVID-19 cases since March, 2021, India reported more than 400 000 new cases daily on May 1, 2021.1 This number is likely to be an underestimate of the true burden of COVID-19 cases, given reports of backlogs of test results, poor access to testing, and many people not getting tested due to fear and stigma.2, 3 Without mitigation, estimates suggest India could reach more than 1 million COVID-19 cases per day with over 1 million cumulative COVID-19 deaths by Aug 1, 2021.4
The Indian Government and health authorities must act fast to flatten this second wave. We strongly endorse the national action plan laid out by The Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Task Force and we have summarised some of their recommendations in the panel
.5 Early in the pandemic, India...
Journal Article
18 May 2021
Dias-Godói, Isabella Piassi, Tadeu Rocha Sarmento, Túlio, Afonso Reis, Edna, Peres Gargano, Ludmila, Godman, Brian, de Assis Acurcio, Francisco, Alvares-Teodoro, Juliana, Guerra Júnior, Augusto Afonso, Mariano Ruas, Cristina
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The new coronavirus pandemic has appreciably impacted morbidity and mortality, as well as having an economic impact worldwide. New vaccines are a potential way forward to reduce transmission rates and subsequent infection. In Brazil, vaccines are being distributed via the public sector; however, in the future, they will be available in the private market. Information about consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a hypothetical vaccine against SARS CoV-2 can help future price setting discussions. A cross-sectional study was conducted with consumers in the five regions of Brazil regarding the WTP for a hypothetical vaccine against SARS CoV-2 with a 50% efficacy. A total of 1402 individuals over 18 years of age who declared not having COVID-19 at the time of the survey were interviewed. The acceptability for this hypothetical vaccine was 80.7%. In addition, the amount of WTP by...
Journal Article
18 May 2021
Kong, Xiangsha, Liu, Feng, Wang, Haibo, Yang, Ruifeng, Chen, Dongbo, Wang, Xiaoxiao, Lu, Fengmin, Rao, Huiying, Chen, Hongsong
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At the end of 2019, an outbreak of pneumonia took place caused by a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 virus), named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A series of strict prevention and control measures were then implemented to reduce the spread of the epidemic. Influenza, another respiratory tract virus, may also respond to these measures. To assess the impact of these measures, we used the total number of passengers movement in mainland China from 2018 to 2020 and daily number of railway passenger flow during the 2020 Spring Festival travel rush to reflect the population movement and to analyze newly and cumulatively confirmed COVID-19 and influenza cases. We found that implementing the series of measures against COVID-19 mitigated both COVID-19 and influenza epidemics in China. Prevention and control measures for COVID-19 might be used to control respiratory tract infections to...