Travel medicine and infectious disease
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Travel Med Infect Dis · Nov 2020
LetterMasks and medical care: Two keys to Taiwan's success in preventing COVID-19 spread.
Although Taiwan has geographic, commercial and social proximity to China, it stands as a stark example of success in response to the SARS-CoV-II pandemic.
"Despite being close to China, Taiwan has stopped the COVID-19 with general screening strategy and encouraging people in Taiwan to wear a mask. Taiwan reported the first COVID-19 case on January 21, 2020. About 850,000 and 400,000 of Taiwan's 23 million citizens live and work in mainland China, respectively."
Many factors have contributed to this success, beginning with Taiwan's memory and lessons drawn from the 2003 SARS-I pandemic.
Two notable factors are Taiwan's national health service, with it's ubiquitous and affordable access to acute medical care:
"Taiwanese people … can go to the emergency department of the nearest hospital for relevant medical examinations (including sampling and testing for COVID-19, blood tests, and X-ray imaging test) with out-of-pocket medical expenses of less than NT$ 600 (USD 20). People with high suspicion of COVID-19 infection will be admitted to isolation wards, and those who have tested positive for COVID-19 can only be discharged home after three consecutive respiratory specimens test negative for the virus. … patients will have to pay less than NT$ 3000 (USD 100) out-of-pocket for medical services."
And their management of mask access, production and subsequent widespread public use:
"The daily production capacity of face mask manufacturers in Taiwan before the outbreak was 1.88 million face masks ... Currently, Taiwan is capable of producing 20 million face masks per day and will boost its production capacity to 25 million face masks per day."
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Travel Med Infect Dis · Nov 2020
ReviewSaliva as a possible tool for the SARS-CoV-2 detection: A review.
Salivary tests for the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) diagnosis have been suggested as alternative methods for the nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal tests. ⋯ Salivary samples show great potential in SARS-CoV-2 detection and may be recommended as a simple and non-invasive alternative.
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Travel Med Infect Dis · Nov 2020
COVID-19 disparity among racial and ethnic minorities in the US: A cross sectional analysis.
To analyze racial disparities in Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the United States of America and discuss possible reasons behind this inequality. ⋯ The analysis shows the disparity of coronavirus disease outcomes by ethnicity and race. Additional research is needed to determine the factors behind this inequality.
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Travel Med Infect Dis · Nov 2020
Incidence of COVID-19 among returning travelers in quarantine facilities: A longitudinal study and lessons learned.
The emergence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) had resulted in an unpresented global pandemic. In the initial events, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia implemented mandatory quarantine of returning travelers in order to contain COVID-19 cases. ⋯ This study showed the efforts put for facility quarantine and that such activity yielded a lower incidence of positive cases. There was a need to have a backup healthcare facility to accommodate those developing a medical need for evaluation and admission for non-COVID-19 related illnesses.