TY - JOUR
T1 - International examples of primary care COVID-19 preparedness and response
T2 - a comparison of four countries
AU - Goodyear-Smith, Felicity
AU - Kidd, Michael
AU - Oseni, Tijani Idris Ahmad
AU - Nashat, Nagwa
AU - Mash, Robert
AU - Akman, Mehmet
AU - Phillips, Robert L.
AU - van Weel, Chris
PY - 2022/4/13
Y1 - 2022/4/13
N2 - We report the learnings gleaned from a four-country panel (Australia, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria) sharing their countries' COVID-19 primary healthcare approaches and implementation of policy at the World Organization of Family Doctor's World virtual conference in November. The countries differ considerably with respect to size, national economies, average age, unemployment rates and proportion of people living rurally. South Africa has fared the worst with respect to waves of COVID-19 cases and deaths. All countries introduced strategies such as border closure, COVID-19 testing, physical distancing and face masks. Australia and Nigeria mobilised primary care, but the response was mostly public health and hospital-based in South Africa and Egypt. All countries rapidly adopted telehealth. All countries emphasised the critical importance of an integrated response between primary care and public health to conduct surveillance, diagnose cases through testing, provide community-based care unless hospitalisation is required and vaccinate the population to reduce infection spread.
AB - We report the learnings gleaned from a four-country panel (Australia, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria) sharing their countries' COVID-19 primary healthcare approaches and implementation of policy at the World Organization of Family Doctor's World virtual conference in November. The countries differ considerably with respect to size, national economies, average age, unemployment rates and proportion of people living rurally. South Africa has fared the worst with respect to waves of COVID-19 cases and deaths. All countries introduced strategies such as border closure, COVID-19 testing, physical distancing and face masks. Australia and Nigeria mobilised primary care, but the response was mostly public health and hospital-based in South Africa and Egypt. All countries rapidly adopted telehealth. All countries emphasised the critical importance of an integrated response between primary care and public health to conduct surveillance, diagnose cases through testing, provide community-based care unless hospitalisation is required and vaccinate the population to reduce infection spread.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Family Medicine
KW - General Practice
KW - Health Policy
KW - Public Health
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128293842&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1136/fmch-2022-001608
DO - 10.1136/fmch-2022-001608
M3 - Article
C2 - 35418499
AN - SCOPUS:85128293842
SN - 2305-6983
VL - 10
JO - Family Medicine and Community Health
JF - Family Medicine and Community Health
IS - 2
M1 - e001608
ER -