Focus Friday: Top COVID-19 (coronavirus) news this week

This week marked World Health Day, which called for supporting nurses and midwives as they fight on the front lines of the pandemic.  As the World Bank continues to support pandemic readiness worldwide, the poorest countries are preparing for the impacts of coronavirus on their health systems and beyond. African countries, meanwhile, are using lessons from the Ebola outbreak to mitigate COVID-19. 

World Health Day: The nursing workforce is critical to COVID-19 (coronavirus) and global health |Blog

• As the coronavirus continues to spread across 200+ countries, the ability to respond by limiting transmission, and maintaining a functional health system will determine the speed of recovery in each country. Unfortunately, most countries are ill-equipped to respond to a pandemic of this scale. Part of this can be attributed to shortages and limitations of the nursing workforce.

In the face of coronavirus, African countries apply lessons from Ebola response |Feature Story

• The response to the 2014 Ebola crisis taught Africa what it takes to invest in more resilient health systems and effective surveillance mechanisms to cope with epidemics.

For the poorest countries, the full danger from coronavirus is only just coming into view |Blog

• The poorest countries in the world are facing the crisis from a position of profound disadvantage: their health systems are fragile, their access to critical medical supplies is tenuous, their economies are less resilient and heavily dependent on trade. 

Montenegro: How a higher education and innovation project is helping COVID-19 response |Blog

• Montenegro is facing massive challenges in responding effectively and rapidly to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. With support from a World Bank-funded project, the country’s universities and research institutes are getting access to critical diagnostic equipment and technology.

WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) and COVID-19 |Brief

• Safely managed water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services are an essential part of preventing and protecting human health during infectious disease outbreaks, including the current COVID-19 pandemic. The World Bank Water Global Practice has developed a menu of solutions, including concrete actions to help client governments in their preparedness and emergency response, and future resilience to similar epidemics.