Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an unprecedented pandemic. COVID-19 is a highly contagious and potentially fatal respiratory infection which has spread within three months of its outbreak to more than 173 countries, causing 3.7 million infections and 256,551 deaths at this writing. Unfortunately, no treatment or vaccine currently exists for COVID-19, although several clinical trials are on-going to find a definite solution to this pandemic. Prevention through public health measures remain the best strategy recommended till date. This prevention involves physical distancing and compulsory confinement at home in several European countries, in the UK and USA. Unfortunately, home confinement decreed in most high-income countries like France has been dangerous for women, victims of psychological, physical and sexual violence from their intimate partner. Violence between intimate partners has become an unintended consequence of the stay-at-home policy against COVID-19. Since the promulgation of a home confinement decreed in many high resource settings (USA, UK, Europe, Canada, Australia, etc), the rate of violence between intimate partners has increased tremendously resulting to the worst scenario, women’s death in some of these countries. The stay-at-home law is not yet a national decree in several low resource settings like Africa, where COVID-19 has not been declared an epidemic in several countries. However, intimate partner violence has been reportedly described as a real violation of women’s right before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in the African continent. This commentary highlights the effects of intimate partner violence due to COVID-19 confinement in France and extrapolates what may be the effect of an implementation of a COVID-19 confinement law in Cameroon. Also, the authors suggest recommendations to lessen the burden of intimate partner violence in countries with a stay-at-home policy.

Background: Post-partum hemorrhage (PPH) is a leading cause of maternal mortality. Its first-line of prevention often entails uterotonic drugs like oxytocin and misoprostol which constitute a core point of management in low-resource settings of sub-Saharan Africa. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of oxytocin alone compared with oxytocin plus misoprostol in two different eras (before and after the advert of misoprostol) of a semi-urban Cameroonian hospital. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study carried out between January 2015 to April 2015 and between January 2016 to April 2016 on a group of parturients (group A) who received only oxytocin and another administered oxytocin and misoprostol (group B), respectively. All participants delivered at the Bamenda Regional Hospital, Cameroon. The two different periods represent the era before and after the implementation of misoprostol in the prevention of PPH in this semi-urban hospital. Socio-demographic data, clinical characteristics and details of delivery as well as risk factors for PPH were studied from obstetric records. Results: We studied the obstetric records of 1778 parturients were studied; 857 in group A and 879 in group B. Their mean age was 26.3 ±5.2 years. Both groups were comparable in several baseline sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. The prevalence of PPH was 2.7% (3.4% vs 2.2%; p = 0.0744). The risk of PPH in the oxytocin only group was about 1.5 times higher than in the oxytocin plus misoprostol group. The estimated blood loss between the two groups was statistically significant (1100 ± 150 vs 800 ± 100 ml, p< 0.0001). The active management of the third stage of labor without misoprostol was the only risk factor for PPH. Conclusion and Global Health Implications: The implementation of misoprostol plus oxytocin in the prevention of PPH in this low-resource setting improved the obstetrical outcome by reducing the risk and the amount of blood loss during delivery. Keywords: • Misoprostol • Oxytocin • Postpartum Hemorrhage • Cameroon   Copyright © 2020 Numfor et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in this journal, is properly cited.

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The first-trimester rupture of a bicornuate uterus (BU) is a rare obstetrical emergency, especially following previous normal vaginal deliveries where it is often misdiagnosed. A 24-year-old G3P2002 woman presented at 11 weeks of gestation with sudden onset of severe left iliac fossa pain without other symptoms. On examination, she was fully conscious and hemodynamically unstable with signs of peritoneal irritation, a distended pouch of Douglas and a slightly enlarged uterus and a tender left adnexal mass. The diagnosis of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy was made and a laparotomy was done. Intra-operative findings were hemoperitoneum, a left ruptured BU and a dead fetus. Surgical management entailed hysterorrarphy, left salpingectomy and conservation of both ovaries. Her postoperative course was uneventful and future fertility was preserved. We recommend a high index of suspicion of ruptured BU as a differential diagnosis of acute abdomen in the first trimester in women with previous term vaginal deliveries.