The United States is making the same mistake in its response to the monkeypox outbreak, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as it did with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, by not moving swiftly enough to expand testing and increase awareness.
Travel bans and lockdowns will not work, while at the same time the things that really will work, like vaccinations and masks, are not fully being utilized. We seem unable to learn from our mistakes — can we change things this time?
Travel bans and lockdowns will not work, while at the same time the things that really will work, like vaccinations and masks, are not fully being utilized. We seem unable to learn from our mistakes — can we change things this time?
Governor Baker needs to close the loophole for licensed health workers who are outside of the current mandates but still work with vulnerable populations, including children.
In September 2021 Pharos President Robert Hecht and former Program Officer Lindsey Hiebert published this paper in the Food and Nutrition Bulletin, the result of an ongoing collaboration with Yale University School of Public Health, the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), and Bien Être de la Femme et de l’Enfant au Niger (BEFEN).
This study estimated the costs of the 1,000 Days Program, an integrated package of maternal and pediatric health interventions in rural Niger that involves the innovative use of routine small-quantity lipid-based nutritional supplements for children aged 6-23 months. This work can help set the stage for further analysis of the benefits and costs of the program and the feasibility of financing and scaling it up across Niger and other Sahelian countries suffering from very high rates of child malnutrition.
COVID-19 is proving to be an ever-shifting and likely chronic health threat and we need to remain vigilant. Vaccines are our best weapon in this battle.
Should we fear the Delta variant? Yes, if you are unvaccinated. Rob and Shan implore those who have not yet received their Covid-19 immunization to run to their nearest vaccination site. This Boston Globe article explains that the vaccine is the most effective tool against the rapidly spreading Delta variant.
In this NYTimes op-ed, Pharos President Robert Hecht and Managing Director Shan Soe-Lin argue that after immunizing health workers and the elderly in the first phase of vaccination, US states should target hotspot communities in the immediate next phase to slow transmission of the virus and reopen the economy as soon as possible.
Such geographic targeting would be easier to implement than the current efforts to vaccinate according to occupational groups of frontline and essential workers and would reach the most vulnerable.
Given the current race between vaccination and the virus (including the new more contagious variants which are already here in the US), we need to move on an urgent “wartime” basis to expand vaccine coverage. So far, we are not winning that race. Our recommended approach can help to strengthen our national response in the next 6-8 weeks.
In April 2019, this article on HCV screening in Malaysia was published in the journal, Value of Health Regional Issues. Authored by Pharos’s Lindsey Hiebert and colleagues at the University of Malaya and the Netherlands Institute for Public Health and the Environment, it models an efficient strategy for screening patients in order to reach Malaysia’s HCV elimination targets.
To develop a screening strategy, we designed and analyzed a step-wise approach where targeted screening of people who inject drugs (PWID) and others with higher rates of infection would be phased in over time. Making hepatitis screening as efficient as possible is an important issue for low- and middle-income countries. Millions of individuals remain un-diagnosed and as HCV drug prices continue to decline, screening costs will become an important cost driver. We believe our Malaysia analysis and tools can assist other countries looking to design similar programs.
In an op-ed published in the Boston Globe on March 19th, Pharos Managing Director Shan Soe-Lin and President Robert Hecht explain why the prevailing guidance, in the midst of the current COVID-19 crisis, against wearing masks is wrong. They urge everyone to cover their face outside the home, in addition to washing hands frequently and practicing social distancing.
Shan and Rob argue that the “don’t touch your face” instruction is impossible for most people to follow as the urge to touch is hard-wired in utero. Studies show that humans touch their noses, eyes and mouths on average every 2.5 minutes. COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses cause infection through the mucous membranes on the face. By denying access to the nose, eyes and mouth, coronavirus and other respiratory infections can be prevented. Washable, reusable face masks are a simple way for people to protect themselves from their most direct threat: their own hands.
The op-ed notes that medical masks, including surgical and N95 masks, which are in desperately short supply, should be strictly reserved for health professionals at greatest risk for infection.
Widespread adoption of non-medical masks requires major behavior change and the elimination of stigma against wearing masks, but these challenges can and must be overcome. Masks are an important and badly under-utilized public health tool to protect the public against COVID-19.