Community health workers and Covid-19: Cross-country evidence on their roles, experiences, challenges and adaptive strategies

Community health workers (CHWs) are a key part of the health workforce, with particular importance for reaching the most marginalised. CHWs’ contributions during pandemics have received growing attention, including for COVID-19. This paper contributes to learning about CHWs’ experiences during COVID-19, based on evidence from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Kenya and Ethiopia. The paper synthesises evidence from a set of research projects undertaken over 2020–2021. A thematic framework based on the research focus and related literature was used to code material from the reports. Following further analysis, interpretations were verified with the original research teams. CHWs made important contributions to the COVID-19 response, including in surveillance, community education, and support for people with COVID-19. There was some support for CHWs’ work, including training, personal protective equipment and financial incentives. However, support varied between countries, cadres and individual CHWs, and there were significant gaps, leaving CHWs vulnerable to infection and stress. CHWs also faced a range of other challenges, including health system issues such as disrupted medical supply chains, insufficient staff and high workloads, a particular difficulty for female CHWs who were balancing domestic responsibilities. Their work was also affected by COVID-19 public health measures, such as restrictions on gatherings and travel; and by supply-side constraints related to community access and attitudes, including distrust and stigmatization of CHWs as infectious or informers. CHWs demonstrated commitment in adapting their work, for example ensuring patients had adequate drugs in advance of lockdowns, and using their own money and time to address increased transport costs and higher workloads. Effectiveness of these adaptations varied, and some involved coping in a context of inadequate support. CHW are critical for effective response to disease outbreaks, including pandemics like COVID-19. To support CHWs’ contribution and protect their wellbeing, CHWs need adequate resources, managerial support, and motivation

Effect of low pH on marine mollusca at Rangbai coast, Gujarat.

1869-1871The Study site between N 21° 33̍ 05.4̋ E 069° 41̍ 15.4̋ and N 21° 35̍ 57.7̋ E 069° 41̍ 26.6̋ observed. The present study investigates Effect of Low pH on marine mollusca, it was observed intertidal zone at Rangbai coast, Gujarat. During study period August 2014 to January 2015, I was observed due to acidic pH the Molluscan diversity directly affected. in Rangbai area is During January month Low pH occur, therefore it was decreased the Diversity of mollusca

Current status of marine worms at Rangbai coast

217-218Present study is to prepare a baseline data base of diversity of the marine worms in intertidal zone of Rangbai coast. During study periods we were observed two marine worms species Eulalia viridis(Linnaeus, 1767) and Alitta virens(M.Sars, 1835). Both worms are belonging to class Polychaete

ABSTRACT Scaling Properties of the Internet Graph

As the Internet grows in size, it becomes crucial to understand how the speeds of links in the network must improve in order to sustain the pressure of new end-nodes being added each day. Although the speeds of links in the core and at the edges roughly improve according to Moore’s law, this improvement alone might not be enough. Indeed, the structure of the Internet graph and routing in the network might necessitate much faster improvements in the speeds of key links in the network. In this paper, using a combination of analysis and extensive simulations, we show that the worst congestion in the Internet in fact scales poorly with the network size (Òª, whereÒis the number of nodes), when shortest-path routing is used. We also show, somewhat surprisingly, that policy-based routing does not exacerbate the maximum congestion when compared to shortest-path routing. Our results show that it is crucial to identify ways to alleviate this congestion to avoid some links from being perpetually congested. To this end, we show that the congestion scaling properties of the Internet graph can be improved dramatically by introducing moderate amounts of redundancy in the graph in terms of parallel edges between pairs of adjacent nodes