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Background: The WHO recommends use of masks and social distancing to reduce transmission and death from COVID-19. Governments worldwide also rely on test-trace-isolate (TTI) programs for additional risk mitigation. This study aims to estimate the cost-effectiveness of implementing a national TTI strategy to reduce the number of severe and fatal cases of COVID-19 in Colombia. Methods: We developed a simulation model of COVID-19 infection combined with a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered structure. We estimated the incremental cost-effectiveness of a comprehensive TTI strategy compared to no intervention over a one-year horizon, from both a health system and a societal perspective. Hospitalization and mortality rates were retrieved from Colombian surveillance data. We included program costs of TTI intervention, health services utilization, PCR diagnosis test, productivity lost, and government social program costs. We used the number of deaths and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) as health outcomes. Sensitivity analyses were performed. Findings: Compared with no intervention, the TTI strategy reduced COVID-19 mortality by 67%. In addition, the program saved an average of $1,045 and $850 per case in the social and health system perspective, respectively. These savings are equivalent to almost four to ten times the annual Colombia per capita healthcare spending. Interpretation: The TTI strategy in Colombia is a highly cost-effective public health intervention to reduce the burden of COVID-19. TTI is dependent on its capacity to identify and give early medical and social assistance to new cases. Our findings exemplify the success of using comprehensive strategies integrating telemedicine and predictive analysis to improve prevention programs. Funding Information: This study was supported by the Colombian Ministry of Health through award number PUJ-04519-20 received by E.P. AVO and SDS declined to receive any funding support for this study. Declaration of Interests: Three of the authors (JFN, MRB, and FR) are direct employees of the funding institution (Colombian Ministry of Health). The other authors do not present any conflict of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and deemed not human subjects research (IRB number: 14144).

This proposal offers a unique solution for a unique challenge: using oil to pay for Venezuela’s debt. Venezuela and PDVSA’s creditors currently receive little in the way of coupon payments and have minimal means of recourse over limited assets located outside Venezuela’s borders. We suggest using a creditor trust to consolidate creditors into a single entity that would purchase the oil from Venezuela with bonds tendered by the creditors to the trust. This transaction would give the creditors trust a priority claim over oil as title holders. It allows a restructuring process with relatively few changes to current bonds, thus reducing the possibility of litigation. In addition to the legal and structural benefits offered to both Venezuela and the creditors, this proposal offers something that no other proposal does — the potential for successful execution under current U.S. sanctions based on the issuance of a specific license from OFAC. Although there is no assurance as to whether such license would be obtained, it is arguable that this structure runs outside the scope of the Executive Order No. 13,808, and that there is precedent supporting the issuance of such a license authorizing commercial transactions.

In order to assess the differences between articles about public health published in national vs. international journals, we undertook a comparison of quantitative analysis methodologies and topics for five indexed journals (3 international, 2 national) during 1991-2005. A total of 2511 articles were reviewed from: European Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Public Health, Cuadernos de Saude Publica, Revista Nacional de Salud Publica and Revista de la Facultad Nacional de Salud Publica. International journals employed quantitative analysis techniques with more innovation and use of multivariate analysis than those employed by national journals. More reviews were found in the latter. Frequent topics for national journals included: child health, mental health, infectious diseases, zoonosis, sanitation, and health systems and policy. Frequent subjects for international journals included: social determinants, chronic disease and cancer. Both types of journals include local topics. We concluded that lack of multivariate techniques in national articles becomes a barrier for publication in international journals.(El siguiente documento muestra las diferencias tematicas y metodologicas de la publicacion internacional en salud publica con respecto a la produccion cientifica de las revistas colombianas. Se seleccionaron 5 revistas, de alto impacto y con indizacion internacional de caracter general de salud publica en el periodo de 1991-2005, y se compararon por la complejidad de la metodologias utilizadas para el analisis de los datos y por los temas publicados en cada revista. Se revisaron un total de 2511 articulos de las revistas: European Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Public Health, Cadernos de Saude Publica, Revista Nacional de Saud Publica, Revista de la Facultad Nacional de Saud Publica. En las metodologias se encontro: mayor presencia de estudios cuantitativos en revistas internacionales que en las nacionales, mayor porcentaje de revisiones en la publicacion nacional, mayor utilizacion de metodologias cuantitativas innovadoras en las revistas internacionales, incluyendo Cuadernos de Saude Publica. Las revistas internacionales, estandarizan la metodologia de sus articulos en analisis bivariado y multivariado. Todas las publicaciones presentan un gran enfasis en lo local. En temas, la publicacion nacional se centra en temas de salud infantil, salud mental, enfermedades transmisibles y zoonosis, salud sanitaria y ambiental y sistemas y politicas en salud.La publicacion internacional en temas de determinantes socioeconomicos enfermedades cronicas no transmisibles y cancer. Conclusiones: La publicacion nacional se encuentra rezagada en el uso de metodologias cuantitativas complejas para el analisis de los problemas de salud. La brecha muestra que para las publicaciones nacionales existen barreras de entrada, relacionadas no solo con idioma sino con la complejidad de metodos cuantitativos empleados y para la indizacion internacional de revistas las nacionales no han superado los estandares para entrar.)