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Background Sustaining a ‘fit-for-purpose’ health workforce requires a better understanding of the health care worker cadres that are affected during pandemics and their outcomes. In hospitalized health care workers with confirmed COVID-19 between March 2020 and May 2023 in Liberia, we determined the hospitalization and case fatality rates, type of health care worker cadres affected, their demographic and clinical characteristics and hospital exit outcomes. Methods This was a cohort study using routine data extracted from hospitalization forms for health care workers in 24 designated COVID-19 treatment facilities in Liberia. Results Of the 424 health care workers with COVID-19, hospitalization rates progressively declined between 2020 and 2023, with the highest rates in 2020 (24/1,000 health care workers) and 2021 (14/1,000 health care workers). Case fatality was 2% in both 2020 and 2021 with no deaths thereafter. Among those hospitalized, the highest proportions were nursing cadres with 191(45%), physicians with 63 (15%) and laboratory technicians with 42 (10%). The most frequent reported site for COVID-19 infection was the health facility (326, 89%). COVID-19 vaccination coverage in health care workers was 20%. The majority (91%) of hospitalizations were for mild symptomatic infections. Even in referral centres (n-52), 18 (35%) were for mild infections. Of the 424 who were hospitalized, 412 (97%) recovered, 9 (2%) died and 3 (1%) either left against medical advice or absconded. Of the nine deaths, none were vaccinated, seven had moderate-to-severe disease but were not referred to specialized COVID-19 treatment centers. Conclusions The hospitalized health care workers for COVID-19 were predominantly clinical and laboratory personnel who were mostly unvaccinated, and health facilities were hot-spots for contracting infections. The triage and referral system was weak with unnecessary hospitalization of mild infections. This study provides useful insights for outbreak preparedness including priority vaccination and improving health care worker safety in Liberia.

The article aims to assess the quality of public spaces of the Third Campus of the Jagiellonian University and to determine to what extent the mobile crowdsensing survey method is useful in this respect. Public spaces are nowadays considered the key elements of the university campus structure. Their appropriate shaping and management fosters social interactions between different user groups, which should consequently strengthen creativity and interdisciplinarity within the university milieu. Our paper presents contemporary trends in the campus planning and organisation. In the empirical part, the quality of selected public spaces (main avenue, squares and courtyards, and green areas) was determined based on the behaviour of campus users as observed by participants of the crowdsensing study. These results were confronted with the visual material and comments of the study participants, as well as with the expert assessment of the authors. In the final part, activities aimed at improving the quality of public spaces of the campus were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: In communication process, feedback plays a major role. Usually, a formal/informal feedback is collected from students on their experience and understanding about the tasks given by the mentor to assess the learning process. Receiving high-quality feedback (positive or negative) is valuable from multiple perspectives. Students may or may not enjoy sessions on innovative teaching–learning methods; in that case, feedback helps to modify it into a more effective and acceptable method of teaching. METHODOLOGY: With an objective to understand the students' perception on a smartphone app in community-based research, a cross-sectional study was planned among undergraduate students posted for the re-orientation of medical education. Epicollect5, a mobile app, was used for data capture. Students were requested to submit their feedback by using the same app which they had used during the survey. The received feedback was analyzed and presented in proportions. RESULTS: Students shared that the new tool was easy to install (97.5%), user friendly (100%), saved time in data collection and data entry (100%), and they also missed the usual practice of paper-based questionnaire survey (12.5%) and data entry in excel sheet (7.5%). CONCLUSION: The students liked and enjoyed the paperless method of data collection and entry which saved time and improved the quality of the data. They were also interested to learn more on the designing or framing the questionnaire in app and planned to use the app in future research. The feedback conveyed the immense welcome for new technology by the students into medical curriculum.

When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, there was concern that TB and HIV services in Zimbabwe would be severely affected. We set up real-time monthly surveillance of TB and HIV activities in 10 health facilities in Harare to capture trends in TB case detection, TB treatment outcomes and HIV testing and use these data to facilitate corrective action. Aggregate data were collected monthly during the COVID-19 period (March 2020-February 2021) using EpiCollect5 and compared with monthly data extracted for the pre-COVID-19 period (March 2019-February 2020). Monthly reports were sent to program directors. During the COVID-19 period, there was a decrease in persons with presumptive pulmonary TB (40.6%), in patients registered for TB treatment (33.7%) and in individuals tested for HIV (62.8%). The HIV testing decline improved in the second 6 months of the COVID-19 period. However, TB case finding deteriorated further, associated with expiry of diagnostic reagents. During the COVID-19 period, TB treatment success decreased from 80.9 to 69.3%, and referral of HIV-positive persons to antiretroviral therapy decreased from 95.7 to 91.7%. Declining trends in TB and HIV case detection and TB treatment outcomes were not fully redressed despite real-time monthly surveillance. More support is needed to transform this useful information into action.

When the COVID-19 pandemic was announced in March 2020, there was concern that TB and HIV programme services in Malawi would be severely affected. We set up real-time monthly surveillance of TB and HIV activities in eight health facilities in Lilongwe to see if it was possible to counteract the anticipated negative impact on TB case detection and treatment and HIV testing. Aggregate data were collected monthly during the COVID-19 period (March 2020-February 2021) using an EpiCollect5 application and compared with monthly data collected during the pre-COVID-19 period (March 2019-February 2020); these reports were sent monthly to programme directors. During COVID-19, there was an overall decrease in persons presenting with presumptive pulmonary TB (45.6%), in patients registered for TB treatment (19.1%), and in individuals tested for HIV (39.0%). For presumptive TB, children and females were more affected, but for HIV testing, adults and males were more affected. During COVID-19, the TB treatment success rate (96.1% in pre-COVID-19 and 96.0% during COVID-19 period) and referral of HIV-positive persons to antiretroviral therapy (100% in pre-COVID-19 and 98.6% during COVID-19 period) remained high and largely unchanged. Declining trends in TB and HIV case detection were not redressed despite real-time monthly surveillance.

There was concern that the COVID-19 pandemic would adversely affect TB and HIV programme services in Kenya. We set up real-time monthly surveillance of TB and HIV activities in 18 health facilities in Nairobi so that interventions could be implemented to counteract anticipated declining trends. Aggregate data were collected and reported monthly to programme heads during the COVID-19 period (March 2020-February 2021) using EpiCollect5 and compared with monthly data collected during the pre-COVID period (March 2019-February 2020). During the COVID-19 period, there was an overall decrease in people with presumptive pulmonary TB (31.2%), diagnosed and registered with TB (28.0%) and in those tested for HIV (50.5%). Interventions to improve TB case detection and HIV testing were implemented from August 2020 and were associated with improvements in all parameters during the second six months of the COVID-19 period. During the COVID-19 period, there were small increases in TB treatment success (65.0% to 67.0%) and referral of HIV-positive persons to antiretroviral therapy (91.2% to 92.9%): this was more apparent in the second six months after interventions were implemented. Programmatic interventions were associated with improved case detection and treatment outcomes during the COVID-19 period, suggesting that monthly real-time surveillance is useful during unprecedented events.

Introduction: In communication process, feedback plays a major role. Usually, a formal/informal feedback is collected from students on their experience and understanding about the tasks given by the mentor to assess the learning process. Receiving high-quality feedback (positive or negative) is valuable from multiple perspectives. Students may or may not enjoy sessions on innovative teaching-learning methods; in that case, feedback helps to modify it into a more effective and acceptable method of teaching., Methodology: With an objective to understand the students' perception on a smartphone app in community-based research, a cross-sectional study was planned among undergraduate students posted for the re-orientation of medical education. Epicollect5, a mobile app, was used for data capture. Students were requested to submit their feedback by using the same app which they had used during the survey. The received feedback was analyzed and presented in proportions., Results: Students shared that the new tool was easy to install (97.5%), user friendly (100%), saved time in data collection and data entry (100%), and they also missed the usual practice of paper-based questionnaire survey (12.5%) and data entry in excel sheet (7.5%)., Conclusion: The students liked and enjoyed the paperless method of data collection and entry which saved time and improved the quality of the data. They were also interested to learn more on the designing or framing the questionnaire in app and planned to use the app in future research. The feedback conveyed the immense welcome for new technology by the students into medical curriculum., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest.