Outbreaks Of Contagious Diseases Research Articles

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Public Health Measures During Infectious Disease Outbreaks: A Systematic Review.

Over the previous three decades, the incidence of infectious disease outbreaks has considerably increased and the trend is expected to increase further. Public health measures are essential for controlling and preventing emerging outbreaks of infectious illnesses. This study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of public health measures during infectious disease outbreaks by summarizing the outcomes from the available evidence in the literature. A systematic review was carried out through a detailed search strategy using specific keywords applied across different electronic databases, including the Science Direct, PubMed, and EMBASE databases. Studies published between 2015 and 2024 were included with a focus on cohorts, clinical trials, longitudinal studies, case-control, and quasi-experimental studies. Low-quality studies and those published before 2015 along withincorrect findings or measures were excluded. A standardized form was used for data extraction. The quality of included studies and the risk of bias were assessed through relevant techniques. The obtained data was narrative synthesized and findings were organized systematically. The reviewed studies revealed that public health measures are considerably effective against infectious disease outbreaks. The success of various measures such as social isolation, confinement measures, and public education on hygiene against different outbreaks of respiratory infectious diseases has been well-established in the literature. Moreover, the timing of intervention application plays a vital role in their success. The implementation in the early phase of an outbreak is highly effective, as it protects more people from infectionand controls the overall burden of the disease. The systematic review provided valuable insights into the efficiency of public health measures in monitoring outbreaks of infectious illnesses. The main findings suggest that appropriate public health interventions are effective in controlling the incidence of contagious disease outbreaks. Ongoing research strives to investigate measures that are most effective from the perspective of public health against various transmittable diseases to prevent future outbreaks.

Logistics of patient evacuation in response to disease Outbreaks: Critical considerations for transportation planning

The recent outbreaks of diseases have emphasized the importance of having robust decision-making models in place to aid in the evacuation of patients, particularly from overwhelmed hospitals to alternative facilities. The sudden surge of patients during an outbreak can quickly deplete a hospital's resources, leading to compromised healthcare delivery and an increase in mortality rates. Evacuating patients to other hospitals can alleviate the burden on a single facility, but numerous factors need to be considered when making evacuation decisions, including patient acuity, transportation logistics, and bed availability at other facilities. Despite the critical role of patient evacuation in disease outbreaks, there has been a lack of systematic and comprehensive research on developing decision-making models that identify the critical factors. This paper aims to bridge this gap by providing the key factors that should be considered when creating decision models for patient evacuation in response to contagious disease outbreaks. The findings reveal that decision-making processes are influenced by a multitude of factors, including patient numbers and classifications, staff scheduling and assignments, resource availability for transportation, road traffic conditions, capacities and numbers of evacuation and receiving hospitals, as well as the behaviour of disease outbreaks. These findings provide practical insights for relevant authorities to optimize emergency strategies during disease outbreaks and enhance the overall resilience of the healthcare system against external disruptions.

Predicting Contamination Spread Inside a Hospital Breakroom with Multiple Occupants Using High Fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation on a Virtual Twin

Mitigating the rise and spread of contaminants is a major challenge faced during any contagious disease outbreak. In densely occupied areas, such as a breakroom, the risk of cross-contamination between healthy and infected individuals is significantly higher, thereby increasing the risk of further spread of infectious diseases. In this study, a high fidelity transient fluid solver and Lagrangian particle-based method were used to predict the airflow distribution and contaminant transmission inside a detailed 3D virtual twin of an emergency hospital breakroom. The solver efficiently captured the contaminants emitted simultaneously from multiple talking occupants as well as their propagation inside the breakroom. The influence of airflow distribution on the aerosol spread inside the breakroom for two different air conditioning vent positions was demonstrated with all occupants and with reduced occupants. The baseline simulation with all occupants in the breakroom showed a higher risk of contamination overall as well as between adjacent occupants. It was observed that there was a 26% reduction in the contaminants received by the occupants with the proposed modified vent arrangement and a 70% reduction with the scenarios considering a reduced number of occupants. Furthermore, the fomite deposition and cross-contamination between adjacent humans significantly changed with different ventilation layouts. Based on the simulation results, areas with higher contaminant concentrations were identified, providing information for the positioning of UV lights in the breakroom to efficiently eliminate/reduce the contaminants.

COVID-19 pandemic complexities on endemic infectious disease management and diagnosis in poor countries

The persistence and frequency of prevalent infectious diseases continue to be a major problem on the African continent. Malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS are the most common infectious diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria and tuberculosis have had a considerable negative impact on poor nations’ health, resulting in high mortality and morbidity. Fortunately, the World Health Organization’s introduction of the RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine may soon put an end to the lingering difficulties in malaria eradication, barring new contagious disease outbreaks like COVID-19. The literature reviewed looked at the current condition of endemic infectious illnesses in low-income countries from 2018 to 2022. Improvements in disease management and other mitigating strategies were evaluated alongside the resurgence of malaria, and particularly tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease of considerable global health concern in recent decades. The study’s focus was the destructive effects of COVID-19 on the treatment and prevention of infectious illnesses. PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were used as relevant databases. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant global impact on Africa, but not because the continent was directly impacted by the scourge and its fatal effects; rather, it did so by successfully forcing resource reallocation and diverting medical personnel to COVID-19 treatment, which in turn made TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS-related problems worse. To halt the endemicity of these diseases and their potential intensification if a new pandemic like COVID-19 emerges in the future, enhanced efforts from all stakeholders, particularly in poorer climes, are required to be more inward looking and less reliant on foreign support.

The SPIN framework to control and prevent the Marburg virus disease outbreak in Equatorial Guinea.

A full grasp of the epidemiological factors promoting transmission is necessary for responding to highly infectious diseases, which involves their control and prevention. With the recent outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) in Equatorial Guinea, we saw the need to re-shed some technical light based on our field experiences and published literature. We reviewed 15 previous MVD outbreaks globally. Coupled with core One-Health approaches, we highlighted the SPIN (socio-environmental context, possible transmission routes, informing and guiding public health action, needs in terms of control measures) framework as a guiding tool for response teams to appropriately approach this highly contagious infectious disease outbreak for collective and stronger global health security. The Central African Regional Collaborating Centre (RCC) of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has a big lead role to play, most especially in coordinating the community engagement and risk communication packages of the response, which is highly needed at this point. We reiterate that this framework remains relevant, if not timely, in rethinking pandemic preparedness and response in resource-limited settings.

COVID 19 Outbreak and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games: A Perspective from Japan’s Economy and Capital Market

This study highlights the key impacts of hosting an international sports event, Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, during the period of deadliest contagious disease outbreak in history, COVID 19. The perspective is analysed in terms of the performance of capital market, investment market and sectoral market by the indexes of TOPIX, Stock Market, Bond Market, Foreign Exchange, FTSE, MSCI, and sectoral index of Air Transportation, Construction, Pharmaceutical which shows different range of fluctuation.

MENTAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF COVID-19: A NARRATIVE REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Introduction: The novel coronavirus disease, which the World Health Organization (WHO) officially designated as COVID-19, originated in Wuhan, China, as a cluster of unexplained pneumonia cases. It has affected countries worldwide and has been classified as a pandemic. To deal with this global health crisis and to curtail the spread of the virus, stringent public health measures have been implemented. There is evidence of a positive correlation between widespread outbreaks of contagious diseases, symptoms of psychiatric illness, and psychological distress. Aim: Considering the need to develop a deeper understanding of COVID-19 to devise strategies to deal with and prevent impact of COVID-19 on mental health thereby present review is undertaken. Method: A narrative review was conducted in May 2020. Result: Findings are suggestive that healthcare workers engaged in providing care to patients affected by COVID-19 are at a risk of developing psychological issues such as vicarious traumatization. With regards to the public, certain populations, including individuals with preexisting mental health issues, are more vulnerable to adverse psychological impacts from COVID-19. To conclude it, the review findings highlight the hidden mental health impact of COVID-19 and allows health care workers in all specialty to watch for vulnerable patients, their family members, and colleagues who may adversely psychologically affected by COVID-19.

Psychological experiences of nurses during COVID-19 pandemic in the Maldives

The Maldivian nurses had to face and deal with unique challenges during the coronavirus outbreak. As a result, they often faced extreme psychological pressure as a result of working constantly with a high risk of infection from patients and working in temporary setups with limited resources and manpower who were not well equipped to deal with a pandemic for the first time. This study aimed to explore the psychological experiences of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Maldives. A descriptive qualitative research design was used for this study. Five female nurses working in the COVID-19 related in-patient facilities participated in semi-structured, virtual (telephone or online) interviews. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Three themes emerged from the data analysis: Overwhelming experience, nurses being treated differently, and valuing family support. The participants described the experience of being emotionally overwhelmed. Many experienced feelings of uncertainty and grief, mainly when they had to handle the death of COVID-19 patients under their care. Most significantly when they had to handle the dead bodies in a body bag as it was very painful for the families not being able to perform their last respect and rituals as per cultural practices. The second main theme was nurses’ grievance owing to the differential treatment they were subjected to by the public. When nurses had to go back to their resident islands, the island community was scared of contracting the disease from the nurses and as a result the public rejected interacting with the nurses. This further isolated the nurses subjecting them to loneliness. Finally, family is the most important and valuable support to overcome their psychological burden. Family members including husbands and mothers were very supportive of taking care of the nurses’ children while they worked long hours. The Maldivian nurses in COVID-19 facilities faced psychological adversities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings from this study can help in identifying issues and experiences of nurses, in order to implement appropriate interventions to monitor and support nurses during contagious disease outbreaks.

Clustering-based iterative heuristic framework for a non-emergency patients transportation problem

IntroductionNon-emergency patient transportation (NEPT) services are particularly important nowadays due to the aging population and contagious disease outbreaks (e.g., Covid-19 and SARS). In this work, we study a NEPT problem with a case study of patient transportation services in Hong Kong. The purpose of this work is to study the discomfort and inconvenience measures (e.g., waiting time and extra ride time) associated with the transportation of non-emergency patients while optimizing the operational costs and utilization of NEPT ambulances. MethodsA mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation is developed to model the NEPT problem. This MILP model contributes to the existing literature by not only including the patient inconvenience measures in the objective function but also illustrating a better trade-off among different performance measures through its specially customized formulation and real-life characteristics. CPLEX is used to find the optimal solutions for the test instances. To overcome the computational complexity of the problem, a clustering-based iterative heuristic framework is designed to solve problems of practical sizes. The proposed framework distinctively exploits the problem-specific structure of the considered NEPT problem in a novel way to enhance and improve the clustering mechanism by repeatedly updating cluster centers. ResultsThe computational experiments on 19 realistic problem instances show the effective execution of the solution method and demonstrate the applicability of our approach. Our heuristic framework observes an optimality gap of less than 5% for all those instances where CPLEX delivered the result. The weighted objective function of the proposed model supports the analysis of different performance measures by setting different preferences for these measures. An extensive sensitivity analysis performed to observe the behavior of the MILP model shows that when operating costs are given a weightage of 0.05 in the objective function, the penalty value for user inconvenience measures is the lowest; when the weightage value for operating costs varies between 0.8 and 1.0, the penalty value for the same measures is the highest. ConclusionsThis research can assist decision-makers in improving service quality by balancing operational costs and patient discomfort during transportation.

The Differential Consequences of Fear, Anger, and Depression in Response to COVID-19 in South Korea.

Studies on previous outbreaks of contagious diseases suggest that the impact of the emotions associated with an epidemic can be greater than that of the epidemic in terms of the number of people affected. This study explores the relationships between the three most commonly expressed emotional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic (fear, anger, and depression) and two outcome variables (compliance with the social-distancing policy and the stigmatization of those infected by COVID-19). A large online, public opinion survey was conducted in South Korea (n = 1000) between 4 and 11 June 2020, which was between the first and the second waves of COVID-19. A series of regression analyses suggest that the emotional response was accompanied by differential behavioral and perceptual consequences. Fear was consistently positively related to all indicators of compliance with social-distancing policies (the voluntary practice of social distancing, support for the “routine-life-distancing” policy, and support for stronger social-distancing policies). Anger was positively related to both stigmatization indicators (responsibility attribution and stigmatizing attitude toward people infected with COVID-19). Finally, depression showed negative relationships with support for the “routine-life-distancing” policy and for stronger social-distancing policies but a positive relationship with the voluntary practice of social distancing. By examining whether and how certain types of emotional responses are more or less related to compliance with social distancing and stigmatization, the present study provides practical implications for effective public communication during an epidemic such as COVID-19.

An Extensive Review on the Use of Feed Additives Against Fish Diseases and Improvement of Health Status of Fish in Turkish Aquaculture Sector

Aquaculture is the second-fastest-growing sector in the world after informatics and its. Average growth of aquaculture is annually ~8.8% over the last 30 years. Turkey has great potential in terms of fish production and the number of fish farms started to increase rapidly. Fish production in intensive culture conditions has enlarged possible threats of contagious disease outbreaks due to high stocking densities, water quality or environmental gradient, etc., as well as the combination of all these factors together. Depending on animal husbandry situations and organizational conditions, gradation of the aquatic surroundings and outbreaks of bacteriological diseases may well cause production losses around 30-40% in aquaculture facilities. Some fish diseases reported most repeatedly in Turkish aquaculture facilities are Vibriosis, Furunculosis, Streptococcosis, Lactococcosis, Aeromonas septicemia, Yersiniosis, Photobacteriosis and Flavobacteriosis. Antibiotics, disinfectants and chemotherapeutics used for the prevention and treatment of diseases result in residual antibiotics and chemicals in fish products, microorganisms resistant to antibiotics and damages to the aquatic environment and human health. This situation has led researchers to use alternative feed additives in fish diets such as medicinal plant, herbal extracts, phytochemicals, plant secondary metabolites, immunostimulants and probiotics. This review includes research conducted in Turkey between the years 2001 and 2020, and aims to summarize the findings regarding the use of medicinal plant, herbal extracts, phytochemicals, plant secondary metabolites and immunostimulants in fish feed to prevent and treat diseases, improve immunity, increase disease resistance, and reduce stress in fish towards a better management and best aquaculture practice for the sustainability of the growing aquaculture industry in the region and worldwide.

Nurses' experiences of providing care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan: A qualitative study.

In the event of a contagious disease outbreak that reaches the level of a pandemic, the responsibility of providing care for patients increases for front‐line nurses. However, being in a nursing role exposes professionals to a range of risks, including but not limited to contagion and mental health impacts. This qualitative study aimed to explore in‐depth nurses’ experiences of providing care in the time of the COVID‐19 global pandemic. The study followed the COREQ guidelines. Purposive sampling was applied to recruit participants. Semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews were used to collect the data from 16 nurses across five hospitals in Taiwan in 2020. Contents were analysed using Colaizzi’s seven‐step method. The essential structure that was identified was ‘Providing care cautiously and being alert to the changing environment’, which reflects the progress of Taiwanese nurses in providing care during the global COVID‐19 pandemic. The essence of the phenomenon is presented through three themes: (i) facing the emerging challenge, (ii) struggling with uncertainty, fear, stigma, and workload, and (iii) adapting to changes in the environment: learning and innovation. The findings identified multi‐dimensional impacts of nursing experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and the study yielded evidence and practices that can be used to guide and support adequate interventions to support nursing professionals. By understanding the various aspects of nurses’ experiences, policymakers and administrators can better address nursing care providers’ professional and mental health needs during a pandemic.

Sleep disturbance among frontline nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic

The main objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of sleep disturbance and related psychological factors (stress, anxiety and depression) among frontline nurses in Oman during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional and descriptive correlational design using Qualtrics® software was used in this research. Data were collected using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Logistic regression was performed to identify factors associated with poor sleep quality. Of the 987 frontline nurses who participated, 58.8% (n = 580) reported poor sleep quality. In an examination of PSQI components the mean sleep duration was 7.04 (SD = 1.59) hours per night, and the sleep latency mean was 38.18 min (SD = 31.81). Poor sleep (p < .05) was significantly associated with age, marital status, years of experience, comorbidity, and whether family members or relatives were suspected or confirmed with having COVID-19. Logistic regression showed that poor quality of sleep was significantly associated with stress, anxiety and depression symptoms. Sleep disturbance is a significant problem for frontline nurses working in Oman during the COVID-19 pandemic. Appropriate interventions to maintain the health conditions and reduce sleep disturbance among frontline nurses are needed in order to help support nurses’ work during contagious disease outbreaks. These can be implemented through online workshops and training to enhance nurses’ responses to the pandemic or to any further disease outbreaks.

Comparing tweet sentiments in megacities using machine learning techniques: In the midst of COVID-19

COVID-19 was announced by the World Health Organization as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Not only has COVID-19 struck the economy and public health, but it also has deep influences on people's feelings. Twitter, as an active social media, is a great database where we can investigate people's sentiments during this pandemic. By conducting sentiment analysis on Tweets using advanced machine learning techniques, this study aims to investigate how public sentiments respond to the pandemic from March 2 to May 21, 2020 in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and another six global mega-cities. Results showed that across cities, negative and positive Tweet sentiment clustered around mid-March and early May, respectively. Furthermore, positive sentiments of Tweets from New York City and London were positively correlated with stricter quarantine measures, although this correlation was not significant in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Tweet sentiments of all three cities did not exhibit a strong correlation with new cases and hospitalization. Last but not least, we provide a qualitative analysis of the reasons behind differences in correlations shown above, along with a discussion of the polarizing effect of public policies on Tweet sentiments. Thus, the results of this study imply that Tweet sentiment is more sensitive to quarantine orders than reported statistics of COVID-19, especially in populous megacities where public transportation is heavily relied upon, which calls for prompt and effective quarantine measures during contagious disease outbreaks.

Does disease outbreak news impact equity, commodity and foreign exchange market? Investors' fear of the pandemic COVID-19

PurposeMarket volatility is subject to good or bad news and even responses to fake news and policy changes. In this piece of work, the authors consider the effects of the recent COVID-19 pandemic event on the global equity market, commodities and FX market, measured in terms of the investors' fear index.Design/methodology/approachIn this empirical work, the authors employ time series-based regression models followed by augmented dummy regressions and growth of the COVID-19.FindingsCOVID-19-induced investors' fear appears to be higher in the equity segment for the first time since the market crash of 1987 and the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Furthermore, this disease outbreak shock has been more pronounced in terms of crude oil prices. Besides, a market participant in the commodity and FX market has paid a disproportionate premium to protect such pandemic development. Findings show that Options act as the best hedge against an uncertainty like COVID-19 and that option-based implied volatility is the best measure of investors' fear and market volatility.Practical implicationsThis study has practical implications for the financial markets, e.g. (1) Contagious disease outbreak news matters for the equity, commodity, and foreign exchange markets – empirical outcome validates the theory of market efficiency valid for the Options. (2) Option's implied volatility is the best indicator of investor fear measured for the unprecedented economic news. Further implication holds for the policymakers and society, e.g. (1) The unavailability of short-selling could be one plausible reason for increased uncertainty and volatility; hence, policymakers should look upon this issue at the exchange level. (2) Any market needs multiple lines of risk management, effective price discovery and attractive liquidity.Originality/valueThe study is novel in terms of presenting market behavior amid COVID-19 across global equity markets and commodities and FX markets.

Model collaborative governance dalam pembangunan desa pada masa covid-19: studi di Kabupaten Lampung Selatan

At present, the Covid-19 contagious disease outbreak can spread rapidly throughout the world, including Indonesia. Apart from having a negative impact on the health sector, it also impacts the economic, social, cultural, resilience, tourism and other sectors. This can threaten people in rural areas who have gaps in health accessibility and high levels of poverty compared to urban areas. So it is necessary to carry out village economic development, but still protect the health of rural communities from the Covid-19 disaster. This cannot be done by the government alone. Interdisciplinary and field cooperation is required by referring to the principles of collaborative governance. The research objective was to determine the ideal collaborative governance model in village development during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research uses qualitative methods with a descriptive approach. This method can be studied comprehensively and deeply. The results of this study indicate that in South Lampung Regency there are already several priority activities in the economic and health sectors, some of these priority activities such as Covid-19 Response Village, Village Cash Intensive Work, Village Fund Direct Cash Assistance (BLT), and other Infrastructure Development. These priority activities are collaborations carried out by the government, society and business

Pandemic and hospital avoidance: Evidence from the 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak in South Korea

Existing literature shows that people exhibit disease avoidance behaviors in response to contagious disease outbreaks. We examine hospital avoidance behaviors during the 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea. The outbreak provides an excellent setting for the analysis because unlike the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) situation, no mandatory lockdown was imposed during the outbreak, and the economic impact was also not large. Hence, reduced hospital visits are likely to reflect the public’s intention to avoid hospitals to protect themselves from getting infected with MERS. Moreover, the outbreak did not spread to the entire country and vanished after a short period of time, allowing us to consider the affected regions as the treatment group and the other regions as the control group without much concern of confounding by other factors. The data come from a government agency, which assesses (national) health insurance claims made by hospitals, and hence cover all outpatient visits in the country. We find that people reduced outpatient visits by about 17% in response to the MERS outbreak, and the response was the most intense when new cases were reported most frequently.

Bulaşıcı Hastalıklar Bölgesel Kalkınmayı Nasıl Etkiler: Azor Adaları’nda SARS-CoV-2 Salgınının Turizm Sektörüne Etkileri

Aim: After a contagious disease outbreak, as is the case of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), societal dynamics shift on an unconventional level. In the lack of a vaccine, social distancing and massive lockdowns are acquired as the most effective strategies to contain this new virus. In this regard, the present study was carried out to determine the influence of SARS-CoV-2 over the Azores territory activities as tourism and consequent regional development impacts. Material and Methods: Therefore, the study assessed the decision-makers, the public, and tourists' perceptions regarding this disease outbreak by applying testing tools as questionnaires. This study used a sample of 700 participants. The questionnaires were designed, considering the necessity to carry out online interviews, and were implemented in the Spring months of 2020. After the data from the surveys were gathered, analytical methods and tools were used. Results: The research recognized that during an infectious disease outbreak, people prioritized spending their vacations at the holiday residence of family or friends (20%) instead of touristic resorts (hotels or rented apartments or houses). Also, the study verified a considerable increase in selecting rural tourism accommodations. Besides, more than half of the study participants considered that the “Clean and Safe” stamp (attributed by the Portuguese Health Authorities) is crucial when choosing accommodation and restaurants (75.8%) as well as for choosing the destination to visit (50.5%). Conclusion: The study assumes enormous consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 crisis at multi-levels, being the tourism activity the most affected in this ultra-peripheral region.

Psychological impact of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on nurses.

AimThe new coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic has laid unprecedented stress on healthcare workers and especially nurses. The main objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance among nurses in Oman during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and to explore the contributing factors.MethodsA cross‐sectional and descriptive correlational design using Qualtrics® software was performed. Data were collected using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Perceived Stress Scale.ResultsOf the 1,130 nurses who participated, 75.6% (n = 854) reported stress, 44.2% (n = 499) reported anxiety, 38.5% (n = 435) reported depression and 73.7% (n = 833) reported poor sleep. Stress, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance (p < .05) were significantly associated with age, marital status, comorbidity and whether family members or relatives were suspected or confirmed with COVID‐19. The stress, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance were significantly positively corelated with each other. Logistic regression showed nurses in the age group between 18 and 30, who worked at the frontline, were at a higher risk of stress, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance.ConclusionsStress, anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance are significant problems for nurses working in Oman during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Appropriate interventions to monitor and reduce psychological problems and sleep disturbance among nurses are needed, which can help to support nurses’ work during contagious disease outbreaks.

Review on the Use of ICT Driven Solutions Towards Managing Global Pandemics

A pandemic is a contagious disease outbreak that happens over a large geographic area and affects a great portion of the population while new pathogens appear for which people have less immunity and no vaccines are available. The disease can spread from person to person in a very short time. Health workers are at greater risk of infection because of patients who are carriers. In the 21st century, where everyone is connected through digital technologies, information and communication technology (ICT) plays a critical role in improving healthcare for individuals and larger communities. ICT can be divided into a wide variety of application domains that signify its importance as a major technological paradigm. It is currently drawing large attention because of its potential to alleviate the burden on healthcare systems caused by the rise in chronic diseases, aging populations and pandemic situations. This study surveyed substantial knowledge on how effective ICT healthcare solutions can be used towards managing global pandemics. In order to make it more comprehensive, we also present a four-phase strategic framework that can be deployed to alleviate the strain on healthcare resources during a pandemic, which was derived from the reviewed literature. Further, we also discuss how ICT technologies can be used towards managing pandemic situations chronographically during the transformation from a simple disease outbreak into a global pandemic.