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This paper discusses multidisciplinary international research collaboration team formation during the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges faced, strategies adopted, achievements and dynamics in the implementation of research on Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), by the African Translational Research Group (ATReG). The paper also discusses the lessons learnt and future opportunities for global collaborative research. In-depth virtual interviews were conducted with consenting members of ATReG. Questions were designed to provide rich, deep, and insightful opinions, lived experiences and perspectives of ATReG group members on group formation, challenges, strategies and achievements. Interview data was transcribed and analysed thematically, and the results were presented with important quotations presented. The ATReG consisted of English (n = 13) and French (n = 1) speaking sub-Saharan African (SSA) researchers who specialise in public health, epidemiology, optometry, information technology, supply chain management, psychiatry, community health, general medical practice, nutrition and biostatistics. Most members of the group reported an informal but well-coordinated structure of the group. Formed during the pandemic, all group meetings were held online, and many members are yet to meet each other in person. The group collected data from Africans and published 10 peer reviewed journal articles on COVID-19 within two years. It presented in international conferences, engaged with the media and the public and was awarded a national competitive funding in Nigeria all of which which contributed to career progression and academic promotion of some members. There have been challenges in sustaining the research collaboration and maintaining productivity. Challenges include difficulties meeting deadlines and obtaining funding for research activities. However, these challenges have been addressed through a collaborative problem-solving approach. The study found the need for operational and methodological flexibility, centralised coordination, and established funding sources as being essential for long term sustainability and performance of the group. The ATReG's objective of providing useful data on COVID-19 and generating useful knowledge about COVID-19 in SSA has been achieved. In such a multi-disciplinary international collaborative team relaiant on the online medium to operate, the experiences and challenges can be a model for learning for researchers intending to form international multidisciplinary collaborative groups. Nonetheless, there are still many important areas of research which ATReG will continue to pursue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic severely affected everyday life in Africa, a continent that is known for its high levels of religious belief. Using a corpus of news articles and the social representations research paradigm, this study examines African understandings of the pandemic. It uses installation theory, the wind rose model and the accommodation hypothesis to explore the coexistence between science and belief. The accommodation hypothesis demonstrates that the representations were hierarchical, to elevate God above science. Faith leaders also used the pandemic to enhance faith by blaming sin and urging repentance or blaming science by espousing conspiracy theories about the pandemic being a grand design to draw believers away from God. This paper highlights the great disparity in experience between Africa and the West, initially fuelling conspiracy theories. The findings also reinforce two key conceptual approaches: installation theory on the influence of rules imposed by society on behaviour, and the wind rose model in which representations change over time and in response to social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We begin our reflection in this paper with the cursory observation that most of the major variants of the SARS CoV-2 virus were deciphered in the Global South, namely, alpha (China), beta and omicron (South Africa). This underappreciated fact demonstrates that independent capabilities in frontier sciences in the South contributed fundamentally to global efforts to minimise the human cost of the pandemic. However, while the more efficient vaccines primarily emerged from research and development (R&D)-based capabilities in the Global North, some novel vaccines, secondary innovation in the form of manufacturing and the innovative deployment of preventive measures were also salient in the Global South. Thus, rather than starting with the 'deficit model of development' that is implicit in several policy discourses on the Global South, we argue that innovation concepts should instead be anchored in the rich civilisational heritage of such societies themselves. Theoretical notions such as secondary innovation, which emerged from Chinese efforts at economic catch-up, endogenous development, which seeks to ground Africa's advancement in its own historical antecedents, and grassroots innovation from the Indian subcontinent, guide our South–South dialogical exchange in this article. Consequently, we propose a contextually rooted conceptual framework on endogenous innovation that could better inform socially transformative efforts and highlight some implications for medicinal innovation and astronomy beyond COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is experiencing the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic – from lockdown restrictions to economic uncertainty. Though troubling, the COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity to galvanize support to strengthen urban planning's capacity in Africa. This paper draws on the global response to the pandemic to proffer three lessons that can bolster planning action to respond to health, spatial and socio-economic challenges confronting African cities: (i) recognition of urban planning as an urgent public health activity; (ii) emphasizing urban planning's innate capacity to address health crises; and (iii) citizen engagement to accept planning measures. These lessons are likely to improve urban planning action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local comparisons of effects, responses and mitigations to the Covid-19 pandemic are of vital importance in building a sustainable tourism. This is particularly the case for conservancies in Africa which is largely dependent on international tourism. Qualitative interviews were carried out in the Kenya Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association (MMWCA)with landowners, lodge managers and staff, tourism operators, community organisations and NGOs between January and May 2021. The MMWCA is an important case study as conservancies pay lease payments to more than 14,528 landowners through tourism revenues. The results show how partner conservancies took different paths in securing payments of leases and salaries by rotating staff, attracting international funding and by targeting domestic tourism. Meanwhile, landowners experimented with alternative economic activities such as cattle herding and diary production. The study shows the strength of MMWCA as a stakeholder partnership to proactively design measures including renegotiation of lease-payments, in soliciting external funding and in re-distributing funding. The positive role of domestic tourism is also stressed. The pandemic brought to the forefront discussions on equity and benefit sharing and on the sustainability of the model itself. Recommendations are given to strengthen possibilities for alternative incomes sources and for a diversification of strategies of the MMWCA partners, including the need to stimulate domestic tourism as a parallel source of income. These recommendations are also relevant to conservation areas across the African continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to examine the role of social factors in the formation of country reports related to COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic. To this end, a linked database of countries' COVID-19 reports and five composite variables (which compress the information content of 162 preliminary selected socioeconomic indicators) is analyzed by using regression models with regional dummy interactions. The main findings not only reflect the importance of foreign travel restrictions and airport controls but also show that in Europe and Africa, more corrupt countries have reported significantly fewer cases and deaths than countries in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article engages the perpetual denigration of African Traditional Knowledge System (ATKS) by African governments in favor of western biomedical approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic. We demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic has once again put the spotlight on the alternative approaches to health and the need for a holistic and broader understanding of these practices in Africa. Using a literature review on health sectors across Africa and cases of traditional health medicines and use in selected countries, we show the Afro-cosmo vision and understanding of health, and we make a case for a non-western health approach that is holistic, endogenous, and community-centered. We argue that health approaches need to be anchored on proper understanding of African societies, whose approach to health encompasses the spiritual, emotional, and physical aspect of one's existence. Our work lends support for the importance of having a multidimensional holistic health system and approach for universal health coverage (UHC) toward the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Africa which encompasses ATKS in dealing with pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: People of African and Caribbean descent experienced disproportionately high mortality from COVID-19 and have poor access to palliative care. Aim: To explore palliative care experiences of people of African and Caribbean descent during and immediately prior to the pandemic. Design: Qualitative interview study with thematic analysis. Refinement of themes/recommendations in consultation with an expert patient and public advisory group. Setting/participants: Twenty-six bereaved relatives and 13 health/social care professionals (cared for people of African and Caribbean descent) from throughout England, recruited using social media, community networks and direct advertising to over 150 organisations. Results: Three themes were identified: Representation: Participants did not see themselves reflected in the palliative care services and did not expect their needs to be understood. Mistrust of the healthcare system and perceptions of racism were common and led to anticipation of inequitable care. Personalisation: Relatives and professionals reported a lack of cultural and religious sensitivity in healthcare. Assumptions were made based on ethnicity, and services not offered to all. Awareness and education: Professionals felt they lacked the knowledge to provide care to diverse communities, but were reluctant to ask, due to fear of making mistakes. Inequitable access to services was exacerbated by, but not unique to, the pandemic. Participants recommended raising awareness of palliative services, building professional competence in culturally-sensitive care, and greater ethnic diversity within services. Conclusions: Person-centred, culturally-competent palliative care is not the norm for people of African and Caribbean descent. Expectations of inequitable care are widespread. Sustained action on multiple fronts is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As it is common with the most devastating events in the world, women always seem to be at the most disadvantage position. This situation manifested during the period of COVID-19 lockdown throughout the world and Africa in particular. The purpose of this study is to explore Domestic Violence (DV) cases in African during the COVID-19 lockdown. Methods: Data for this study were gleaned from an electronic literature search using various databases PubMed and BioMed Central, Web of Science, etc. Key search words were gender DV during and after COVID-19. A total of 68 records were identified during the search. However, only 46 of these sources met the inclusion criteria. Results: From the review done in selected African countries which include Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe; it was discovered that COVID-19 lockdown across these countries worsens the already existing cases of DV. The study also noted that generally, the response of the government has been very poor in terms of dealing with DV cases in the period of COVID-19 lockdown. Conclusion: The study concluded that despite the failures of government in tackling the DV pandemics, NGOs have been very active in championing the cause of those violated while also trying to provide succour to victims. Thus, the study recommended that countries in Africa need to join international initiatives in prioritising DV cases while trying to deal with the virus itself. Thus, one disease should not be traded for another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical cultural practices that no longer exist can have modern day effects. Because communism has been linked with distrust of government, it was hypothesized that (a) historical communism would be negatively associated with COVID-19 vaccination rates, and (b) trust in government would mediate the association. Two studies assessed these hypotheses. Study 1 tested the hypotheses among European, Asian, and African countries, while Study 2 focused on East and West Germany within Europe. All samples except Africa found support for an association between historical communism and lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. However, trust in government did not mediate the association in Study 1, though a significant indirect effect did emerge within Germany in Study 2. Associations held controlling for GDP and age of population. Together, the studies suggest that historical communism in Europe and Asia is associated with real-world behavior today, and that trust in government might be partly responsible for the effect within Germany but less likely within Europe as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The African Sisters Education Collaborative (ASEC) operates education programs for women religious in ten countries of Africa south of the Sahara. As ASEC prioritizes strong relationships with partner institutions, understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these stakeholders is central to providing effective interventions that will ensure continuation of its programs. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to obtain an organizational understanding of stakeholders' ministry/work stress and coping mechanisms during the initial phase of the pandemic. ASEC surveyed its more than 3,500 stakeholders to assess their ministry/work stress, sources of emotional well-being, and coping skills during the early months of the pandemic. The study was designed to provide information to help ASEC initiate a proactive response to the pandemic at an organizational level. Methods: ASEC prepared a brief online survey that was distributed from late April through mid-May 2020. Scales to measure emotional well-being, coping skills, ministry/work stress, and sources of pandemic support were researcher-designed. Lockdown status of the country at the time of the survey was used as a proxy measure of severity of the pandemic. Results: Religious sisters who have participated in ASEC's education programs experienced increased stress in their ministry/work settings, particularly in countries that were under lockdown at the time of the survey. Ministry/work stress was lessened by individual coping skills and sense of emotional well-being, as predicted by the balanced affect literature on ministry stress among religious workers. Working under lockdown, lower levels of ministry/work stress, and confidence in one's coping skills all positively impacted emotional well-being. In turn, emotional well-being was significantly related to greater coping skills, which was also impacted by lower levels of ministry/work stress and greater sources of pandemic support. Conclusions and Implications: The pandemic has negatively impacted the ministries and work settings of these stakeholders, which has influenced their personal emotional well-being as well as their assessment of their coping skills. Positive attitudes about their ability to cope and their emotional well-being reduced their levels of ministry/work stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most African countries implemented measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 during 2020, such as restrictions on business activity and travel, school closures and stay-at-home lockdowns for several months. These restrictive policies had adverse economic and social consequences that triggered a follow-up wave of expansionist public interventions intended to mitigate these effects. 'Shock-responsive' social protection measures included increased benefits to existing beneficiaries (vertical expansion) and registration of new beneficiaries on existing programmes (horizontal expansion). These approaches had the advantages of being quick and administratively simple, but the disadvantage of bypassing people who were made most vulnerable by COVID-19, notably retrenched and informal workers with no access to social insurance. On the other hand, setting up new humanitarian relief or temporary social assistance programmes was slow and susceptible to targeting errors and corruption. COVID-19 also prompted a reassessment of the social contract regarding social protection, with some governments recognising that they need to become better coordinated, more inclusive and rights-based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corona virus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is an extraordinary threat with significant implications in all aspects of human life; therefore, it represents the most immediate challenge for the countries all over the world. This study, hence, is intended to identify the best GIS-based model that can explore, quantify, and model the determinants of COVID-19 incidence and fatality. For this purpose, geospatial models were developed to estimate COVID-19 incidence and fatality rates in Africa, up to 16th of August 2020 at the national level. The models involved Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) analysis using ArcGIS. Spatial autocorrelation analysis recorded a positive spatial autocorrelation in COVID-19 incidence (Moran index 0.16, P = 0.1) and fatality (Moran index 0.26, P = 0.01) rates within different African countries. GWR model had higher R 2 than OLS for prediction of incidence and mortality (58% vs 45% and 55% vs 53%). The main predictors of COVID-19 incidence rate were overcrowding, health expenditure, HIV infections, air pollution, and BCG vaccination (mean β = 3.10, 1.66, 0.01, 3.79, and −66.60 respectively, P < 0.05). The main determinants of COVID-19 fatality were prevalence of bronchial asthma, tobacco use, poverty, aging, and cardiovascular diseases fatality (mean β = 0.00162, 0.00004, −0.00025, −0.00144, and −0.00027 respectively, P < 0.05). Application of the suggested model can assist in guiding intervention strategies, particularly at the local and community level whenever the data on COVID-19 cases and predictors variables are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]