Day 6

Sharing experiences and decisions

Groups will present their results to the whole School, on Saturday, 22th July. More than one more member of the group can present. Presentations should last 15 minutes at maximum followed by a 10-minute discussion. The target public are your fellow students, which are not familiar with your assignment.

How to send you presentation slides

• The final version of presentation slides should be sent as an attached file in PDF format to spsas2023@gmail.com
• The deadline for sending the final version of this PDF file is Saturday 22 July 08:00 AM.
• We will upload this version on the main computer in the auditorium, and this is the version that you should use use and we will discuss.

Day 5

Summary of context and strategies

The group should prepare a summary of the proposed responses and justify what evidence and factors were taken into account.  This summary should be organized in a 15 minute presentation that will be presented on Saturday, 22th July. We encourage you to be creative, clear, concise, and consider that you are presenting to the entire School. This is an opportunity to have valuable feedback from your colleagues and faculty after an intense 5-days immersion into a situation room.

By the end of the day today you should present a preliminary version of Saturday’s presentation to  the instructors. The instructors will visit the group’s room to give some feedback between 3 PM and 5 PM.

How to send you presentation slides

• The final version of presentation slides should be sent as an attached file in PDF format to spsas2023@gmail.com
• The deadline for sending the final version of this PDF file is Saturday 22 July 08:00 AM.
• We will upload this version on the main computer in the auditorium, and this is the version that you should use use and we will discuss.

Day 4

Deciding which interventions are worth adopting 

After 12 months of public health emergency.

Two vaccines are at the end of a phase 3 clinical trial and will be made available by the Ministry of Health following approval by ANVISA (Brazilian Agency responsible for medicaments approval) within 2 weeks. The municipality will receive a batch of each vaccine with the following characteristics:

Vaccine 1 – overall efficacy of 80% decreasing hospitalization.

Vaccine 2 – overall efficacy of 60% reducing clinical complications.

The local authority is responsible for organizing the logistics to vaccination, prioritizing risk groups and priority areas.

Also, a big university research group is planning a study and has reached out to you.

Questions to consider

• Which information about those vaccines are essential to effective implementation and for logistics to achieve the greatest impact in the municipality? Are there reliable alternatives?
• Which logistic possibilities are available to organize a vaccination campaign to target groups?
• What information could contribute to a better monitoring of the vaccination and future impacts? How to deal with vaccine hesitancy?
• Which other prevention measures could be implemented to lower the transmission in the community?
• Which questions would you want to be answered in partnership with the university?

What is expected of the group on day 4

Propose paths and responses based on a broader and more critical knowledge of the facts that arise during the health crisis.

Day 3

Political and Logistical Challenges

Six months after the beginning of the epidemic.

Situation: Lack of public hospital beds, ICU, and dialysis machines.

There is a higher incidence in kindergartens and children. Cases are particularly more severe, including renal failure, among children aged 4 to 14 years.

The mayor and the group of councilors do not accept the control measures and do not believe in the seriousness of the situation, as they damage the image of the municipal administration. They make a statement denying the briefings made by the technical group. They decide to allow the holiday of the patron saint of the city with a fair and shows for the public to take place on the following weekend.

Questions to consider

• How should the team respond to this situation in order to avoid more cases, hospitalizations, and deaths?
• How can the situation room work more effectively with stakeholders and other important actors, in order to reduce cases, hospitalizations, and deaths?
• Which strategies can enhance community awareness and engagement in the response to the outbreak?
• What could be effective strategies to address logistic challenges, like the lack of beds and hemodialysis equipment?
• Which communication strategies can be used in this context?

What is expected of the group on day 3

Tackle the political and logistical issues in this health crisis situation. Aim for creativity and flexibility in designing mitigation actions that are politically and logistically feasible.

Day 2

Describing the current situation

The only information available at the time is a dataset containing daily SARI (Severe acute respiratory infections) hospital admissions data for various regions of the city. Each row represents a single individual and includes information such as the date of symptoms onset, age, sex, neighborhood, outcome, and need for hemodialysis. There is also information about HDI in the neighborhood of the patient’s residence.

The main symptoms presented by patients are fever (90%), headache (75%), cough (80%), myalgia (75%), and hypotension (30%).

Airborne transmission by droplets and aerosols has already been identified.

Database available

Map file https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GsFAFbhuPZ24IwDshVyGEUr0svndo7g4/view?usp=sharing

Population data https://drive.google.com/file/d/185829XkXzLMbsDHIudXnIqH29S_iGee0/view?usp=sharing

Disease data https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XzvdnF8o0RLBp0a1XzE77yBTU2LbBjSr/view?usp=sharing

Questions to consider

• Which groups or regions are most affected?
• Which strategies are priorities?
• What indicators can contribute to monitoring and coping with epidemic and risk of cases?

What is expected from the group on day 2

Analyze data to identify priorities, and population groups at risk, and to support future decision-making.

Day 1

A new disease

Rumors of a new disease have just reached the health department of a city of 500,000 inhabitants. Eleven cases of respiratory disease (atypical pneumonia) and 3 deaths occurred in the 9th epidemiological week of 2023. The affected individuals attend the same church located in a central neighborhood, close to the city’s central bus station.

The church minister called the radio and broke the news.

The municipality is a regional medical reference for small towns, located near an interstate highway junction.

Many cases progressed to renal failure, increasing bed occupancy, and the need for dialysis.

Questions to consider

•  What are the first steps to investigate the problem?
•  How to organize the mitigation of this health crisis?
• What are the indicators of interest to monitor and organize a strategy to control the situation?
• What are the research priorities that should be proposed to answer immediate strategic questions for understanding the dynamics of the disease?

What is expected of the group on Day 1

Organization of the group to broaden the understanding of the situation and start the discussion about the first steps to guarantee actions with an impact in the future.

Discussions on what are the first steps and actions to investigate and monitor the epidemiological situation. What are the main questions to be answered regarding the etiology of the disease and its natural history?