ArticlePloS one2023
Availability and use of personal protective equipment in low- and middle-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Job-Specific Lead Exposure Gradients and Personal Protective Equipment Paradox in Informal Occupational Settings: A Case-Control Study from The Gambia.Environmental health insights · 2026Article
- From Bench to Breath: Material Integrity and Performance of Filtering Facepiece Respirators and Surgical Masks After Multi-Cycle Dry-Heat Reprocessing.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Psychiatric nurses' perceptions and experiences working in a psychiatric institution during the COVID-19 pandemic in Gauteng Province, South Africa.BMC nursing · 2025Article
- Personal protective equipment stockpile practices: a document and scoping review.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Review
- Commentary: What have we learnt about the sourcing of personal protective equipment during pandemics? Leadership and management in healthcare supply chain management: a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Use of personal protective equipment among nurses in the pre- and post-COVID-19 vaccination periods.Revista latino-americana de enfermagem · 2025Article
- The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on work accidents with exposure to biological material in Brazil: an interrupted time series analysis.Revista brasileira de epidemiologia = Brazilian journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Infection and the use of personal protective equipment among Primary Health Care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.Revista latino-americana de enfermagem · 2024Article
- Resilience of front-line facilities during COVID-19: evidence from cross-sectional rapid surveys in eight low- and middle-income countries.Health policy and planning · 2023Article
- Utilization of Personal Protective Equipment and Its Determinants Among Health Care Professionals in Public Hospitals in Resource-Limited Settings.SAGE open nursingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
19 authors at 9 institutions in 8 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAvailability and appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is of particular importance in Low and Middle-Income countries (LMICs) where disease outbreaks other than COVID-19 are frequent and health workers are scarce. This study assesses the availability of necessary PPE items during the COVID-19 pandemic at health facilities in seven LMICs.
methodsData were collected using a rapid-cycle survey among 1554 health facilities in seven LMICs via phone-based surveys between August 2020 and December 2021. We gathered data on the availability of World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended PPE items and the use of items when examining patients suspected to be infected with COVID-19. We further investigated the implementation of service adaptation measures in a severe shortage of PPE.
resultsThere were major deficiencies in PPE availability at health facilities. Almost 3 out of 10 health facilities reported a stock-out of medical masks on the survey day. Forty-six percent of facilities did not have respirator masks, and 16% did not have any gloves. We show that only 43% of health facilities had sufficient PPE to comply with WHO guidelines. Even when all items were available, healthcare workers treating COVID-19 suspected patients were reported to wear all the recommended equipment in only 61% of health facilities. We did not find a statistically significant difference in implementing service adaptation measures between facilities experiencing a severe shortage or not.
conclusionAfter more than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall availability of PPE remained low in our sample of low and middle-income countries. Although essential, the availability of PPE did not guarantee the proper use of the equipment. The lack of PPE availability and improper use of available PPE enable preventable COVID-19 transmission in health facilities, leading to greater morbidity and mortality and risking the continuity of service delivery by healthcare workers.
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