The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts. After passing a century, which it celebrated in 2019, it is now a global movement made up of 30 national member organizations which work in 120 countries.Headquartered in London, the organisation promotes policy changes to gain more rights for young people especially by enforcing the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Saving the Children through co-ordinate emergency-relief efforts, helping to protect children from the post effects of war and violence. Save the Children has a general consultative status in the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
War and conflict result in destructive and persistent setbacks to the development of human societies. Despite ample quantitative reports, the lived experiences of communities affected by war have not been explored in depth. Therefore, this study aims to explore the lived experiences of health and nutrition among war-affected communities. Host community members and internally displaced people (IDPs) were selected and 24 Focus Group Discussions and three Key Informant Interviews conducted. Audio recorded data was transcribed, translated and imported to Atlas-ti version 20 software for analysis. Coding and in-depth reading helped to identify further conceptualization. Thematic analysis was conducted based on descriptive phenomenology. Five themes emerged, including: “memorizing cherished events of the prewar period,” “the shattered livelihoods of the community,” “nonstop interruption of food aid intensifies severe malnutrition,” “reverting the wheel of the three delays,” and “the nexus of poor hygiene and sanitation, health care disruption, and hunger worsens disease outbreaks.” Delays in women’s decisions to seek health care for labor due to fear of atrocities emerged under the theme “reverting the wheel of the three delays.” The health and nutrition of the IDPs and host communities in Tigray were totally crumbled. Local economic and social services and infrastructure were devastated, disorganized, and uncoordinated, failing to fulfill the demands and expectations of the people of Tigray during the war and postwar period. Thus, there is an urgent call to rebuild the shattered livelihoods of the IDPs and host communities.
Cancer patients face dual vulnerabilities during pandemics, including clinical fragility and heightened psychological distress. This cross-sectional study examined associations between generalized anxiety and COVID-19 risk perception among cancer patients, with a particular focus on how threat and coping appraisals were differentially associated with anxiety. We also examined whether sociodemographic differences in appraisal components were statistically mediated by anxiety. Data were collected from 205 cancer patients in Dhaka, Bangladesh. COVID-19 risk perception was assessed using a newly developed 8-item scale (CRPS) comprising threat appraisal and coping appraisal subscales, pending external validation. Sociodemographic characteristics, particularly gender and education, were associated with generalized anxiety, whereas direct associations with COVID-19 risk perception were not observed. Anxiety showed consistent associations with COVID-19 risk perception, with a stronger association observed for threat appraisal (partial ρ = 0.54; regression path coefficient B = 0.80) than for coping appraisal (partial ρ = 0.24). Mediation analyses indicated that the association between anxiety and coping appraisal was statistically observed primarily in relation to perceived threat (indirect effect B = 0.45, 95% CI [0.33, 0.58]), whereas the direct association between anxiety and coping appraisal was not statistically significant within the model. Overall, these findings indicate that anxiety is differentially associated with components of COVID-19 risk perception, with stronger alignment observed for threat appraisal than for coping appraisal. The findings suggest that emotional distress may be more strongly aligned with perceived danger than with coping capacity, with implications for psychological support and risk communication in LMIC oncology settings.
Introduction: Tuberculosis remains a major public health challenge in Nepal, with rising drug-resistant TB and limited surveillance capacity. To address this gap, we conducted the sixth national drug-resistant TB prevalence survey to estimate DR-TB burden and risk factors among new and previously treated pulmonary TB patients. Methods: We conducted a national cross-sectional survey from December 2022 to January 2024, enrolling bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary TB patients using stratified cluster sampling from 49 diagnostic centers. Phenotypic and genotypic DST was performed on 1,768 Mycobacterium tuberculosis–confirmed samples, and logistic regression was used to estimate DR-TB prevalence and associated risk factors. Results: Rifampicin resistance was 2.2% (95% CI: 1.4–3.6) among new TB patients and 10.1% (95% CI: 5.1–19) among previously treated patients. Overall, 9.4% had resistance to at least one first-line drug, with isoniazid showing the highest resistance. Fluoroquinolone resistance was higher among new RR-TB patients, and previous TB treatment was the strongest predictor of rifampicin resistance (aOR: 4.1; 95% CI: 2.6–6.4). Conclusion: Nepal’s RR/MDR-TB prevalence remains stable compared with previous surveys; however, high fluoroquinolone resistance among new patients underscores the need for improved antibiotic stewardship and expanded DST services. These findings provide essential evidence to inform national TB control strategies.
