Call for proper documentation of COVID-19 deaths in poor resource setting: a necessity for management of future occurrences.

Call for proper documentation of COVID-19 deaths in poor resource setting: a necessity for management of future occurrences. Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2020 Jul 30;: Authors: Mbanuzuru AV, Okoro CC, Mbanuzuru CM, Ibeh CC Abstract INTRODUCTION: A Pandemic is an epidemic at a global scale. The word 'epidemic' has the potential to lead to chaotic, unreasoned responses to health problems, especially when used by journalists. Nigeria like other poor resource countries is equally affected by the current corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Standardization and proper documentation of the mortality of the COVID-19 in the poor resource countries will help in managing other disease outbreaks in future. This paper calls for improvement in capturing these data for better planning in the future. AREAS COVERED: Quality data is very essential for policy makers to appreciate any disease condition. In order to present a comprehensive picture of COVID-19 mortality, the deaths were broadly grouped into two as follows: direct and indirect COVID-19 deaths. Most of the current reported deaths seem to be direct deaths. EXPERT OPINION: We propose that for better estimation and standardization, verbal autopsy could be used to differentiate direct/indirect COVID deaths. At full development, this model could be applied to other diseases, outbreaks or pandemics. The disease surveillance officers, and other health workers can be train...
Source: Expert Review of Anti-Infective Therapy - Category: Infectious Diseases Tags: Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther Source Type: research