Dr. Smrutiranjan Nayak from the Department of Community Medicine, KIMS has published an article in the prestigious ‘BMJ Global Health’ as a contributory author. His article “Combating the COVID-19 pandemic in a resource-constrained setting: Insights from initial response in India” was published in the November issue of BMJ.
The article is based on The GRID COVID-19 Study Group which has members located across 40 institutions in India, covering 21 of 28 states and 3 of 8 UTs. The members were identified based on their engagement in COVID-19 pandemic containment in various capacities, such as programme advisors, implementers, members of rapid response teams, researchers in respective states/UTs and at the National level. The group kept track of COVID-19 developments in respective and neighboring states and UTs.
Low and middle income countries (LMICs), where 85% of the world’s population reside, need context relevant approaches, the article mentions. India’s variegated epidemiological, sociopolitical and systemic vulnerabilities make its pandemic response complex. India could leverage pre-existing legislative provisions to adopt a collective combat, with states taking the lead with support from the union government. The pre-emptive stringent nationwide lockdown had benefits as well as uncovered vulnerabilities. Insights from India’s initial response will help in response preparedness and planning for future pandemics, especially in the LMIC context, it concludes.