A cost-effective program to fight COVID-19 in resource-challenged countries

A public health strategy that combines contact tracing and community-based screening with isolation and quarantine centers can substantially reduce infections, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 while being cost-effective in low-and-middle-income countries like South Africa, a study by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has found. In a paper published in The Lancet Global Health, the research team reported that this battery of health interventions, implemented either fully or partially, could offer good value for the money and, in some scenarios, even reduce health care expenditures in South Africa.