Dear Colleague,

The protests roiling the US are a call to action for policymakers and society to address America’s structural inequalities and injustices. This is a moment in time for policymakers, academia, the private sector, and civil society to strategize, organize and implement the known solutions that can address these historical injustices.

CUGH is working very hard to bring solutions to the attention of Congress. We are working with our members across the United States to engage their elected officials to work with them to implement the reforms that are needed to address these deep, long-standing challenges that have obstructed opportunity, create fear, widen disparities and divided the country.

United States, departing from and defunding the WHO, is a threat to the organization and particularly harms low-income countries. We are pushing Congress to assert its power and stop this incredibly destructive act that undermines global health security and harms the world’s poor the most.

Finally, our task forces are identifying solutions to address the challenges to educating students in this new environment and the financial impact the current situation has on the academic sector.

Thank you in advance for sharing this newsletter widely. We hope you and yours stay safe.

Best wishes,
Keith Martin MD
Executive Director
CUGH
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Archives of past newsletters are available at : https://www.cugh.org/announcements/covid-19-newsletter

This newsletter is divided into the following sections:
  • Advocacy efforts
  • Recent pandemic updates
  • Resources for educators
  • Resources for researchers
  • Resources for health practitioners
  • Member requests
  • Other resources
ADVOCACY EFFORTS

Please provide your feedback and thoughts about the impact of the COVID-19 on global health and academia using this form.  

See CUGH's three most recent press releases below.


“These protests remind us we need to reassess how justness is about protecting the most vulnerable in our society as well as globally. America needs to rebuild its leadership in this space.” - Dr. Michele Barry, Chair of CUGH's Board of Directors

“The decision will increase death rates around the world from Covid-19 and other diseases, Dr. Keith Martin Executive Director of CUGH said adding, that the world’s poor would be most affected.” - New York Times, May 30 th 2020

Please also see the Boston Herald article on the US decision to leave the WHO.

"Deadly infectious diseases do not recognize national borders and neither can our response. The failure to deliver a multinational response to COVID-19 is a threat to every country, including the United States.” - Dr. Keith Martin

This document from Human Rights Watch provides an overview of human rights concerns posed by the coronavirus outbreak, drawing on examples of government responses to date, and recommends ways governments and other actors can respect human rights in their response.

Friday, June 5, 2020 1:00 PM (ET)

The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies are pleased to host the 2020 Future Strategy Forum, an initiative to connect scholars who research national security with its leading practitioners. Future Strategy Forum: Cooperation and Conflict in the Time of Covid-19 will feature a virtual keynote discussion with the Hon. Michèle Flournoy on June 2nd, followed by three panels over three days exploring how COVID-19 will impact national security. 
COVID-19 and Democracy and Governance will explore how the pandemic and global responses will impact democracy, privacy, and trust in government across the world.

For communities and their residents to recover fully and fairly, state and local leaders should consider the following health equity principles in designing and implementing their responses. These principles are not a detailed public health guide for responding to the pandemic or reopening the economy, but rather a compass that continually points leaders toward an equitable and lasting recovery.

Thursday   June 4, 2020, 8:30 AM (ET)

Join IntraHealth International, Nursing Now, the International Council of Nurses and Johnson & Johnson for a   webinar   e xploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the urgent need to address the gender and nurse leadership issues raised in  Investing in the Power of Nurse Leadership: What Will It Take?  

The single most important priority of the global community is to stop the COVID-19 pandemic in its tracks; to halt its rapid transmission and reverse the trend of consequential global distress. It is known that this goal is only achievable when everyone, everywhere can access the health technologies they need for COVID-19 detection, prevention, treatment and response. Now more than ever, international cooperation and solidarity are vital to restoring global health security, now and for the future.

That is why the Government of Costa Rica, in partnership with the World Health Organization, and its co-sponsors are calling to action the global community to voluntarily share knowledge, intellectual property and data necessary for COVID-19. Shared knowledge, intellectual property and data will leverage our collective efforts to advance scientific discovery, technology development and broad sharing of the benefits of scientific advancement and its applications based on the right to health.

Pledge your support for the Solidarity Call to Action and your sharing commitments now!
RECENT PANDEMIC UPDATES

This daily (M-F) newsletter from the University of Washington provides a succinct summary of the latest scientific literature related to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Click here  to subscribe.

This website from Johns Hopkins University is an outstanding resource to help advance the understanding of the virus, inform the public, and brief policymakers in order to guide a response, improve care, and save lives. It includes access to an interactive COVID-19 map.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 Center provides tailored guidance to keep people safe. The site also contains a number of resources on the virus, including cases, data, and surveillance.
RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS

International global health partnerships have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While many of our activities have halted at this time, the Association of Pediatric Program Directors Global Health Learning Community wishes to understand what activities have continued and how to proceed with these partnerships in the post-COVID19 era. To do this, they would like to engage with international organizations that partner with U.S.-based institutions for global health education in a qualitative research study.

If you are part of an institution within an international global health partnership, please consider completing this 1 minute survey by June 12th to aid in their recruitment process.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Considering  recent recommendations , medical schools, students and residency programs are adjusting the final year of training and the residency application process in unprecedented ways. Leading thinkers in medical education recently weighed in on what the changes will mean and how medical schools, residency programs and Match applicants can adjust.

They did so during a recent AMA Innovations in Medical Education Webinar, focusing specifically on changes to away rotations and residency interviews. A recording of the webinar is available in the resources area of  the Accelerating Change in Medical Education Community   (registration required). The community is also hosting an   ongoing discussion  with leaders in medical education about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on training. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing medical schools to innovate to keep their third- and fourth-year students on track. Learn about the many ways medical schools are achieving their goals for clerkships even though students are unable to see patients in person.

In this article, learn more about how higher education institutions in Bangladesh are transitioning to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the past week, universities have begun releasing yet more details about how they plan to bring students, staff, and faculty members back to campus in the coming weeks and months. College presidents have started to roll out the outlines of those plans, with many insisting that their final decisions will be guided by science and advice from public-health professionals.

The Chronicle of Higher Education spoke to one of America’s top public-health officials, Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about some of the strategies universities have said they’ll employ.

As higher education has moved online in response to COVID-19, how have faculty redesigned and delivered courses that emphasize field-based and experiential learning? This webinar explored emerging models from the field of global health, where students are expected to address public health challenges through community-based learning experiences—even during a global health pandemic.

Webinar recording requires log-in. Slides are open- access.
RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHERS

Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 9:00 AM (ET)

Join IDEAL   and members of the food security implementing community for an online panel discussion on strategies and promising practices for mobile phone and remote tool application for monitoring and evaluation (M&E). During the event, panelists will discuss field level considerations when adapting food security program M&E to mobile phone and remote applications.

Johns Hopkins University is rapidly curating and assessing emerging research on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. They prioritize original, high-quality research for public health action and papers receiving significant attention, regardless of quality.
RESOURCES FOR HEALTH PRACTITIONERS

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020, 4:00 pm (ET) 

Join FRONTLINE's Executive Producer, Raney Aronson-Rath, along with the director of  Inside Italy's COVID War,  Sasha Achilli, and two   leading medical voices from Harvard University, Dr. Michelle Williams—the Dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health—and Christine Mitchell—the Director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics —as they discuss the new challenges confronting the medical community and the American public, as states begin to reopen amidst various pandemic guidelines. 

The program will feature film clips from  Inside Italy's COVID War —which offer an intimate look at critical COVID-19 patients and the doctors dedicated to serving them—a conversation about medical ethics during the coronavirus pandemic, and a discussion of the new public health considerations facing American communities. 

Every Tuesday at 8:00 AM (ET)

Hosted by Drs. Michael Melia and Natasha Chida, COVID-19 Grand Rounds is a weekly, online event that presents clinical cases, in-depth literature reviews, and infectious disease expertise within the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to provide clinicians with relevant and timely information about the care of patients with COVID-19. 

All case presentations in this program have been standardized and quality assured in selection, presentation and discussion. Their goal is to publish and build a library of cases that will aid providers treating patients with COVID-19 in a rapidly changing landscape.  

The   COVID-19 Digital Classroom   is delighted to announce the launch of our global initiative to provide high-quality, medically reviewed, multimedia content and training courses for community-based health workers and local communities globally.
 
Curating existing best-in-class resources, and creating new open-source content specifically designed for health workers working in urban and rural settings in low-income countries, the COVID-19 Digital Classroom is a unique collaboration between global partners who are committed to supporting community-based health workers to save lives.

In the past few weeks doctors in the U.S. and Europe have discovered that among a small percentage of kids, the coronavirus can trigger a rare but serious inflammatory response up to three weeks after the initial viral infection is over. Health officials are calling it  multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children . Learn more about these trends in this interview.

American Medical Association experts and health care professionals discuss the ongoing challenges of treating medically underserved communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
MEMBER REQUESTS

Friday, June 5 , 2020, 5:00 PM (GMT+3)

While the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged nations worldwide, its impact on humanitarian and medical issues in conflict affected areas in the MENA region has been largely ignored. To that end, a better understanding of the current situation by experts in the field is well warranted, and a discussion of feasible measurements that can be taken to reduce its burden in these settings are needed.


AUB Global Health Institute is hosting this webinar is to encourage frontline workers and stakeholders to engage in discussion and brainstorm practical measures that can be taken to improve the response to COVID-19 across conflict settings and reduce its burden.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health presents a series of short lectures based on our experience treating COVID-19 patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Hopkins faculty will talk about their experience and the latest data across key topic areas, and provide resources to help our international partners prepare for the pandemic within their institution.

In this webinar recording from BRAC University's School of Public Health, speakers discuss the various social dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on stigma and gender.

Dr. Seydou Doumbia is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Odontostomatology & Director of University Clinical Research Center (UCRC), University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB) in Bamako, Mali. In this article, he discusses his role in Mali's COVID-19 response with James Clint Welty, MPH, from Tulane SPHTM.
OTHER RESOURCES

Wednesday, June, 10, 2020, 2:00 PM (ET)

Although initially presumed to be isolated from the worst of COVID-19, the virus is now spreading rapidly to smaller and more rural areas. Not only do rural communities lack the critical health care infrastructure and financial resources to adequately address the crisis, but they are also disproportionately vulnerable to its economic ramifications. Rural areas have higher poverty rates, are still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, and have a higher share of the most immediately vulnerable industries like retail and hospitality. Moreover, broadband is lacking in these areas, making it difficult to identify and access emerging information and resources.

On Wednesday, June 10, the Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at Brookings will host a conversation exploring how hyperlocal rural organizations are working to mitigate the economic impacts of COVID-19 on the ground. A panel of local leaders will discuss the role their organizations are playing in supporting struggling small businesses and connecting them to resources at the local, state, and federal levels. Additionally, panelists will discuss how they are laying the groundwork for recovery in the months and years to come, and what further supports are still needed to ensure rural communities durably emerge from this crisis.

Thursday, June 4th, 2020, 12:00 PM (ET)

Director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), John Nkengasong, joins Center for Global Development President Masood Ahmed to discuss how his organization is helping member states to combat COVID-19. They will discuss the efforts to trace, track, and test; how to introduce mitigation measures on a continent that relies on an informal economy; and how to ensure that resources are not diverted away from other health threats like malaria or tuberculosis.

Western governments and NGOs are grappling with their own outbreaks, leaving African nations largely on their own.

Amid fears the world will be plagued by  coronavirus  until effective immunization is widespread, the scramble for a vaccine has become the most important race in the world.

While an effective vaccine is far from guaranteed, there are  dozens  of projects ongoing across the world. Governments have funded a huge bulk of the costs of this research.

Devex asked experts to explain some of the terminology and why it is important for development professionals to understand. 

To fight COVID-19 and other health issues, people must trust that vaccines, medicines, and other medical products are quality-assured and can be available at scale worldwide. Devex looks at what it takes for cutting-edge innovations to deliver on the promise of a healthier future.

As COVID-19 cases continue to expand across Brazil, officials are warning that the public health system is nearing a breaking point. Yet Brazil, which guarantees universal access to healthcare through its public system (SUS), is also home to the second largest private healthcare market in the world. The two systems essentially operate in parallel, and have often competed against each other. In recent weeks, however, the COVID-19 crisis has shown that public-private collaboration is possible, and brings real benefits—not only in the immediate context, where collaboration means more hospital beds, doctors, and equipment made available where Brazil needs them most; but also in the longer run, where public-private partnership can help drive innovation and improve efficiency.

On May 27, the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute and the Institute for Health Policy Studies hosted a discussion of what better integration of the public and private healthcare systems could mean for Brazil, during this pandemic and beyond.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020, 6:00 PM (ET)

The global coronavirus pandemic has shined a light on the industrial agricultural system’s monopolization of our food supply and the exploitation of contract farmers and essential workers at all levels of the supply chain. It has also shown that a resilient, equitable local and regional food system is more important than ever. This crisis offers us an opportunity to reject what isn’t working and build on what is working. 

Our panel of local farmers will discuss how this pandemic highlights the need for regional farmers to feed our local communities. A shift to a more sustainable and diverse local farming system can result in increased crop production, a cleaner and healthier environment, and increased economic opportunity for farmers, workers, and communities. Our panelists will provide examples of their experiences with this type of transition and explain what still needs to be done to support these farmers, such as creating regional processing centers. They will also discuss the critical role consumers play in supporting farmers who make the switch -- and more generally their local, sustainable farming community.
Consortium of Universities for Global Health
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