Perception of Global Participants of ITEC Nations on Country's Preparedness and Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

BackgroundThe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed the public health preparedness and response system across the world. The current study was conducted to gauge the perception of public health professionals of Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) countries regarding the preparedness and responses of their countries in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodologyThree capacity-building programs, namely “Managing COVID-19 Pandemic–Experience and Best practices of India” were conducted by PGIMER, Chandigarh, for public health professionals from ITEC countries from April to May 2021 in which 97 participants from 13 countries have participated. The tools used in the study were adapted from WHO's COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response (SPRP), Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, interim guidelines for Critical preparedness, readiness and response actions for COVID-19, and a strategic framework for emergency preparedness, and finalized using Delphi technique. The overall preparedness of managing COVID-19 was rated using five-point Likert scale, whereas the overall score for the country in combating the COVID-19 pandemic was assessed using 10 point scale.ResultsWe found that the perception of public health professionals to government response regarding COVID-19 for fostering improvement on COVID-19 situation was “moderate” with respect to transmission and surveillance mechanism, uniform reporting mechanism, and availability of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers. However, the participants rated government response as “poor” in the availability of multisectoral national operational plan, human resource capacity, availability of trained rapid response team (RRT), preparedness in prevention and clinical management, training of healthcare workers, communication and community engagement strategies, facilities to test samples of patients, and transparent governance and administration.ConclusionA poor level of preparedness of countries in diverse domains of managing the COVID-19 pandemic was observed. As the global threat of COVID-19 is still looming, great efforts on building a robust preparedness and response system for COVID-19 and similar pandemics are urgently required.

Pandemic Preparedness: A Scoping Review of Best and Worst Practices from COVID-19

“…Similar challenges in terms of widespread sensible communication were found by Upadhyay et al [45], who analysed the perceptions of healthcare professionals in Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) countries towards the preparedness and responses of their countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The top three most reported challenges were a lack of awareness among the public (67%), the undertesting of the susceptible population (81.4%), and a lack of appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) (71.1%).…”

“…Three studies also used statistical methods to further analyse the impacts of practices [ 28 , 30 , 46 ]. Two studies gathered perceptions towards the deployment/communication of practices from groups such as healthcare professionals [ 37 , 45 ]. A broad range of practices was addressed, ranging from specific containment measures (e.g., social distancing, contact tracing, etc.)…”