2020•10•20     Kuala Lumpur

Updated: 1 March 2021

Digital imaging of the coronavirus. Photo by Fusion Medical Animation | Unsplash

COVID-19 is hitting all countries across the globe in unprecedented ways, its reverberation affecting more than just health systems and healthcare delivery, but also the economy, education, industry and beyond. Governments scrambling to develop policies to respond to the pandemic are under pressure to ensure all the policies are coherent across the board.

UNU-IIGH is committed to examining the evidence available to support the needs of UN agencies and member states to craft global health policies that are based on the best available evidence in addressing the pandemic.

COVID-19 POLICY TRACKER

EPIC-Tracker

Inventory of public health, economic, social, and community measures taken to respond to COVID-19 across all countries. These measures include government policies and public sector interventions that aim to control COVID-19, as well measures to mitigate the indirect impacts of the pandemic response, impacts which are felt across all levels of society.

PUBLICATIONS

Article | Ensuring universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and adapting service delivery during COVID-19 to eliminate violence against women

Fatima Ghani and collaborating authors write about the rise of gender-based violence and barriers to access support services during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of Malaysia. The article reviews what efforts are underway by the government and civil society to address these issues, and recommends further measures based on available evidence of what works.

Article | Universal water coverage in Ghana amidst the COVID-19 outbreak: Challenges and possibilities
Ayak Wel et al relate their experience investigating barriers to water access and quality in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana in 2018, reflecting on how water accessibility challenges magnify the public health consequences of disease outbreaks.

Policy Brief | Physical distancing at school: Practice and evidence review

Nina Schwalbe and Susanna Lehtimaki explore the national policies of selected high-income countries with regards to physical distancing in schools, reviewing evidence and offering recommendations regarding closure of schools.

Article | Why Are We Closing Schools?

Nina Schwalbe writes on schools in New York City and explores the current evidence and guidelines by global and regional disease prevention agencies supporting physical distancing in schools in high-income settings.

Article | Community engagement for COVID-19 prevention and control: a rapid evidence synthesis

Claudia Abreu Lopes et al. analysed COVID-19’s global presence and social transmission pathways which require social and community responses, and how it can be used to reach marginalised population and support equity-informed responses.

Article | Global health and human rights for a post-pandemic world

Pascale Allotey et al. on the need to renegotiate the social contract post COVID-19.

Article | In Thailand, Non-citizen Health Matters

Khor Swee Kheng et al. examined how Thailand’s policy towards healthcare for migrant workers (documented and undocumented) helped the country do better in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Article | Accelerating access to medicines in a changing world

Nina Schwalbe et al. reviewed the access efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and identified over 40 access tools of medicines.

Article | Global health and human rights for a post-pandemic world

Rajat Khosla, Pascale Allotey, and Sofia Gruskin looking at how global health can build back better through the lens of human rights.

Article | Unequal access to vaccines will exacerbate other inequalities

Mark Cheong, Pascale Allotey and Daniel Reidpath examine the possibilities that can arise from unequal access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Article | COVID-19: Rethinking risk

Nina Schwalbe on the need for policy makers to shift to a less patriarchal approach and engage with, rather than shield, communities so that communities have agency and voice in developing the response to the pandemic.

Article | How religion can aid public health messaging during a pandemic

Sima Barmania and Michael Reiss, on how religions can be enablers of public health, and religious organisations can be important partners, especially in less secular societies.

Article | Models, Math, and COVID-19: A Public Health Response

Nina Schwalbe and Nathaniel Hupert elaborated on why policymakers should consider the totality of the public health impact during and after the pandemic instead of focusing solely on minimizing COVID-19 deaths alone. This includes consideration of risks and alternatives, and transparency about choices and trade-offs that inform policymakers’ decisions. No mathematical model of a virus alone can do that.

Letter | Tackling COVID-19: are the costs worth the benefits?

Pascale Allotey et al. on how a single, global, COVID-19 focused response ignores important inter- and intra-country variations in socioeconomic, health and demographic factors that could result in some countries bearing an excessive non-COVID-19 burden.

Article | We could be vastly overestimating the death rate for COVID-19. Here’s why

Nina Schwalbe wrote a commentary on why we could be vastly overestimating the death rate for COVID-19. This has powerful implications on understanding how COVID-19 behaves at both population and individual level; the article is a rallying call not just for more testing, but also for health systems to improve how they are sharing data and reporting.

Article | Stopping coronavirus – what does the evidence say are the best measures?

Research Fellow Claudia Abreu Lopes collaborates with Sanae Okamoto from UNU-MERIT to examine what the evidence says are the best measures to stop the spread of coronavirus. It is clear that there is no “one-size-fits-all” strategy that works for everyone, as measures will have different results in countries with different political and health systems, social norms or operating procedures.

Letter | Preserve Global South’s research capacity

Pascale Allotey and 167 signatories urge donors and other funding organisations to maintain support for research capacity in the Global South.

Opinion | Deaths from covid-19 could be the tip of the iceberg

Nina Schwalbe, Pascale Allotey et al. on how a single-minded focus to flatten the COVID-19 curve may compromise a range of other health services, exacerbating non-COVID-related morbidity and mortality.

BLOGS

Blog | Spotlighting the status of informal workers in mining amid COVID-19: the case of India

UNU-IIGH intern Shrijna Dixon writes about the vulnerability of informal laborers in the mining industry in India, which is heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blog | An Internship in the Time of COVID-19: Lessons Learnt and Knowledge Gained

UNU-IIGH intern Aisling Murray relates her experience working on issues of global health, gender and COVID-19 while teleworking from London.

Blog | Improving health communication to counter-misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic

Emmanuel Tsekleves, Claudia Abreu Lopes, Nik Norma Nik Hasan, Jia Xuan Yap, Derrick Chan and Fatima Ghani Gonzalo on how the COVID-19 pandemic has been aggravated by the abundance of false information regarding all aspects of the disease from its etiology and mechanism of spread, to its prevention and treatment, and what governments are doing to counter it.

Blog | Reopening Schools to Promote Children’s Health and Wellbeing Worldwide

Nina Schwalbe, Michelle Remme and Susanna Lehtimaki on recognizing the serious negative impacts that school closures due to COVID-19 are causing on children’s health and wellbeing worldwide, and solutions on what governments could be doing.

Blog | Beyond vested interest: reforming international co-operation post COVID-19

Imme Scholz reflects on how a renewed, differently shaped international co-operation system could be designed to put social, environmental and economic sustainability at the heart of government action and national development strategies.

Blog | Mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on prison populations

Fatima Ghani, Claudia Lopes and Emma Rhule et al. on why governments should comprehensively review punitive drug laws and consider alternatives to conviction and punishment for drug possession for personal use as long term strategy for pandemic preparedness and systemically ensure a reduction in incarceration rates. 

Blog | Health experts and journalists in synergy against COVID-19

Emma Rhule on how health experts can build synergy with journalists to change minds and hearts against COVID-19.

Blog | Why we need global public investment after COVID-19

Simon Reid-Henry argues that the COVID-19 response has highlighted the international need for an ongoing pool of public money and explains how Global Public Investment would work.

Blog | Crowdsourcing SDG linkages to Malaysia’s COVID-19 response

Mike Penkunas, David Tan, Nik Norma Nik Hasan, & Prof. Dr. Rashila Ramli analysed Malaysia’s COVID19 policies & their impact on the nation’s SDGs progression on the #EPICtrackerCoV. There’s a clear gap in policies related to a handful of SDGs, but good progress on others.

Blog | Non-communicable diseases and COVID-19: a perfect storm

Nina Schwalbe on why building synergies across care platforms between #NCDs and #infectiousdiseases are vital to ensure that we address the underlying drivers of the NCD pandemic that are fueling #COVID19 #mortality.

Blog | Mobility, migrants, and COVID-19: an enhanced challenge to health and human rights

Pascale Allotey, Derrick Zhie X. Chan, Fatima Ghani, Emma Rhule on the impact of the pandemic response on migrant health may not be for the better.

Blog | How COVID-19 can change incentives for development co-operation

Nilima Guljarani expounds on how global public investment provides a platform from which operational adaptations appropriate for pandemic-era relations between overseas funders, states and citizen-recipients might be renegotiated.

Blog | Deaths from COVID-19 could be the tip of the iceberg

Nina Schwalbe, Siobhan Crowley, Susanna Lehtimaki and Pascale Allotey on how single-minded focus on COVID-19 response could compromise other vital healthcare supports.

Blog | Preparing for post-COVID-19 from the lense of SDGs: Insight from Malaysia

Rashila Ramli on rebuilding the Malaysian society and economy post-COVID-19 through disaster preparedness, culture of civic responsibility, sustainable risk-resilient game plan, high-speed cost-effect connectivity, and research and innovation.

Blog | COVID-19: Make health systems a global public good

Milindo Chakrabarti on the need to shift from a national approach to health services to investing in health as a truly global public good.

Blog | The future of convening: technology, form, and function

Emma Rhule on adapting our convening approaches to the new normal in the time of pandemia and post-COVID-19. Technology has advantages and weaknesses in supporting convening agenda, and how the new normal can be a pivotal point to widen participation in policy conversation.

EVENTS

Crowdsourcing Activity | What, Why and How: Gender & COVID-19 Research Agenda-setting

(2020•10•28) Lavanya Vijayasingham, Claudia Lopes, Asha George, Michelle Remme, Mamothena Mothupi, and other researchers lead a crowd-sourced exercise in research agenda-setting, gathering views from various stakeholders to shape a collaborative and shared global research agenda for gender and COVID-19.

Webinar | COVID-19: Conversations in the global south with Dr Amaya Gillespie

(2020•10•21) Dr Amaya Gillespie discusses the gender and social and economic impacts and opportunities of COVID-19.

Webinar | Joint continental strategy to contain COVID-19: the role of Africa CDC

(2020•08•27) Dr Raji Tajudeen, Head of Division, Public Health Institutes and Research at Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), will discuss how the African Union – through the Africa CDC – has taken the lead on continental response efforts against COVID-19.

Webinar | Digital transformations during COVID-19 pandemic

(2020•07•24) Dr Lo Ying-Ru (Head of Mission and WHO Representative to Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore), Professor Datuk Dr A Rahman A Jamal (Head of Taskforce for MOSTI-MOHE COVID-19 Testing Laboratories, Malaysia) and Professor Michael Baker (Department of Public Health, University of Ottago, New Zealand) were the panelists of the session ‘Lessons Learnt from Successful Models in Controlling the Spread of COVID-19 Pandemic’, moderated by Dr Claudia Abreu Lopes (Research Fellow, UNU-IGH).

Webinar | Addressing violence against women and children during COVID-19

(2020•07•02) This discussion was part of the Lives in the Balance Summit (1-2 July 2020) that brought together delegates from over 100 countries to draw attention to a people-centred approach for reflecting, sharing, collaborating and acting on COVID-19.

Webinar | Science and Health Reporting

(2020•06•24) Emma Rhule was a panelist at the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development‘s webinar on Science and Health reporting. Her views are consolidated in a blog post on how health experts can collaborate with the media to combat misinformation rampant during the pandemic.

Virtual Dialogue | Crisis and Opportunity – How the COVID-19 moment will catalyse change in the aid sector

(2020•04•30) UNU-IIGH Director Pascale Allotey was invited to be part of the conversation initiated by Wilton Park, together with Joep Lange Institute, Coalition for Global Prosperity, Development Initiatives, UNU International Institute for Global Health, Equal International, and the OECD Development Centre, to discuss the changing scope of public spending and investment for international development cooperation. She contributes her views on the future of financial assistance for international development of global health in the time of a pandemic.