Communicable Disease
Introduction
Infectious diseases result from infection and pathogenic biologic organisms’ development in an individual human or other animal hosts. The term infection doesn’t necessarily mean the same as an infectious disease since certain infections don’t cause ailment in a host. COVID-19 is one of the infectious diseases. This paper will tackle several issues concerning this infection.
COVID-19
COVID-19 is the disease brought about by a novel coronavirus first discovered in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Coronaviruses are a group of infections which will in general infect human and other warm-blooded creature’s respiratory systems. The infections cause conditions such as pneumonia, the typical cold, and severe acute respiratory illness.
There is still no known cure for this disease, and efforts to control this global pandemic have been quite a difficult task since its onset earlier this year. A lot of research centers and facilities began carrying out different tests and trials to find ways to curb the spread of the disease. Patients with respiratory difficulties are only given supportive treatment.
Environmental Factors
Factors such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, food, water and sewage, air, inanimate surfaces, and hands each play a crucial role in the transmission of COVID-19. An increase in temperature and sunlight may destroy the virus by interfering with its stability on different surfaces (Eslami & Jalili, 2020). The CDC suggested that regular hand washing and sanitizing are amongst the best way to control the virus. The CDC has also recommended a water temperature above 65 degrees to clean surfaces. Several ways of transmitting the virus; these include droplets, infected hands, skin-to-skin contact, and contact with infected surfaces (Kampf et al. 2020). Individuals infected with the virus can shed viral particles via surfaces they make contact with and items that they use. These viral particles then settle on this item and become a potential reservoir for spreading the virus. Fomites are a high infection source, especially from bodily fluids such as saliva, nasal fluids, and soiled hands (Dietz et al., 2020).
Lifestyle, socioeconomic status, and disease management
The virus has affected the majority, if not all, of the population, not only locally but globally. People’s way of life had to completely take a turn around with lockdown measures being implemented to help curb the disease’s spread. Lives were completely turned around with many people falling into unemployment and pay cuts as most employers had to lay off staff or cut down on costs to survive the pandemic. Employees from major companies and sectors also had to learn how to work from to reduce the numbers of staff at workplaces.
The Lockdown and social distancing measures have, however, led to an increase in fears and rising levels of domestic violence across different homes worldwide due to an increase in time spent at home. In contrast, the need for health supplies has risen significantly; hence the manufacturing industries have seen a rise in supplies. They have been required to produce personal protective equipment for various hospitals and health centers. The food sector facing has also experienced increased demand due to increased buying and amassing of food products as most individuals had to stay home. This high demand for food products has also affected online food delivery, which has seen a large increase in food delivery and homes demand. Although stores have seen an increased demand for food products, restaurants had to be forcefully closed. These restaurants, therefore, risk permanent closure and loss of jobs by the employees.
The health industry has also seen a great challenge as being in the frontline of the management of the disease, in particular, the risk to medical personnel is one of the most significant vulnerabilities of healthcare systems globally with challenges such as inadequate personal protective equipment, ventilators ICU beds and shortage of personnel. This has significantly exposed the healthcare system’s weakness and has led to an increasing number of deaths worldwide.
Gaps
Several gaps negatively affect the fight against COVID-19 in the community. One of the gaps is inadequate funding of the health sector. This causes the available health facilities to be overwhelmed by the rising cases of this disease. The government should, therefore, partner with organizations such as the world bank to address this issue. Ignorance is another gap in the fight against this pandemic. Despite the government directing its citizens to observe COVID-19 prevention protocols, people still do not follow them due to ignorance. The government should partner with the World Health Organization to develop more sensitization measures to reduce ignorance.
Recommendations to Expand the Community’s Programs
The most critical recommendation is community sensitization and education. Studies have shown that the only sure way to reduce infection is by observing social distancing, avoiding social gatherings, hand sanitization, wearing masks, and many other protocols. Communities need to be educated on these measures to reduce the infection rate.
Public Health Measures
The public health department has had to put in a lot of effort to try and curb the spread of the novel Coronavirus. This has included encouragement of social distancing wearing masks in public places regular and thorough washing of hands and sanitization, closure of schools, businesses, and movement restrictions (Vardoulakis, Sheel, Lal & Gray, 2020). However, these measures have had to be adjusted according to the intensity of transmission. Accurate diagnosis and tracing of contact individuals effectively isolating infected individuals with mild or moderate symptoms in healthcare and home-based settings have been essential in managing the disease.
Ensuring Quality Health
There is no cure for COVID-19; the disease is left to run its course until the patient is cured. However, there are several evidence-based interventions and plans to ensure the quality of life, even with this pandemic. It has been postulated that strict social isolation and distancing may halt the virus’s spread by 99.3 percent (Shamsoddin, 2020). For symptomatic patients, monitoring of vital signs and neonatal feeding is said to be the most important factor. For adults with asymptomatic infection, home-based management is deemed appropriate. Isolation of these patients reduces the number of interactions outside the home by 75 percent (Nicola et al., 2020). A lot of research centers and facilities began carrying out different tests and trials to find ways to curb the spread of the disease. However, the development of a vaccine will take several months before advancing to the clinical trials. It has been anticipated that it will take about a year for the vaccine to be widely available.
Conclusion.
COVID-19 is a highly infectious respiratory disease, especially in the early stages of the disease. Just like other microorganisms, it is affected by several environmental factors. Since its discovery, this disease has impacted lifestyle, socioeconomic status, and disease management. Most governments have put in place several public health measures to fight the spread of this disease.
References
Vardoulakis, S., Sheel, M., Lal, A., & Gray, D. (2020). COVID‐19 environmental transmission and preventive public health measures. Australian And New Zealand Journal Of Public Health. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.13033
Eslami, H., & Jalili, M. (2020). The role of environmental factors in transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). AMB Express, 10(1). doi: 10.1186/s13568-020-01028-0
Kampf, G., Todt, D., Pfaender, S., & Steinmann, E. (2020). Persistence of coronaviruses on inanimate surfaces and their inactivation with biocidal agents. Journal Of Hospital Infection, 104(3), 246-251. doi: 10.1016/j.jhin.2020.01.022
Nicola, M., O’Neill, N., Sohrabi, C., Khan, M., Agha, M. and Agha, R., 2020. Evidence based management guideline for the COVID-19 pandemic – Review article. International Journal of Surgery, [online] 77, pp.206-216. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7151371/
Shamsoddin, E., 2020. A COVID-19 pandemic guideline in evidence-based medicine. Evidence-Based Dentistry, [online] 21(2), pp.71-73. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7317259/