As a result of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the world is facing one of the greatest challenges we have experienced in over a century. The economic consequences for society at large are potentially catastrophic. The health and social care sectors have reacted by providing emergency care on an unprecedented scale, while the scientific community has focused on developing new treatments and a vaccine to prevent future waves of the pandemic. Evidence is emerging to suggest that certain conditions, such as obesity and hypertension, predispose some individuals to a worse outcome if they become infected, and that women may be less likely to die from COVID-19 than men. It is also currently believed that pregnant women are at no greater risk than the general population. There is an urgent need to determine whether these early observations are correct. Furthermore, we need to be sure that pregnancy outcomes are not affected by COVID-19 and that SARS-CoV-2 is not transmitted to the fetus during pregnancy or labour, nor to the infant through breast milk. There are so many questions that need to be answered to optimise care, avoid harm, reduce anxiety amongst women and their families, and inform health professionals and policymakers. We also need to understand the unintended consequences of the global lockdown on women’s health in general. For example, have rates of domestic violence risen; to what extent has women’s mental health been affected and have women successfully adapted or devised new coping mechanisms; have women been denied access to gynaecological treatments during the lockdown, including safe abortion and, if so, with what impact on their health and wellbeing; has the female work-force suffered disproportionately in economic terms; have national and international recommendations and policies been sufficiently gender neutral; have breastfeeding rates been adversely affected; will COVID-19 make attainment of the UN SDGs more difficult, etc.? In keeping with the Scope & Mission of Frontiers in Global Women’s Health, this Research Topic aims to provide a multi-disciplinary platform to answer important COVID-19 related questions that specifically impact upon women’s health and wellbeing, particular in resource-poor settings. The Topic Editors welcome a broad range of contributions including Original Research, Reviews, Commentaries, Study Protocols and Systematic Reviews. We would like to acknowledge Dr. Nathalie MacDermott and Dr. Rhiannon George-Carey who have have acted as coordinators and have contributed to the preparation of the proposal for this Research Topic. ***Given the exceptional nature of the COVID-19 situation, Frontiers is waiving all article publishing charges for COVID-19-related research in this Research Topic. Please note that manuscripts must be submitted by the deadline of December 31st.***

COVID-19 has become one of the most severe issues dominating discussions on the agendas of states globally, and across the African continent, since its emergence in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has regrettably brought into sharp focus the continued multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination faced by women and girls in Africa because of their intersecting identities. Yet, paradoxically, although African women are disproportionately affected by the crisis, they are largely invisible in the responses. Several African states and governments have taken different policy measures in response to the pandemic. These responses have taken different dimensions, including shutting down economies, imposition of lockdowns, coercive quarantine measures with police enforcement and criminal consequences for offenders violating these rules. Unfortunately, these responses have reinforced and amplified women’s disproportionate disadvantage and gender inequalities in Africa. Against this backdrop, this book asks the intersectional question about women’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Applying an intersectional human rights lens involves questioning how the intersecting identities that African women embody affect their experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 Pandemic disrupted lives across borders and created unprecedented pressures on the health and medical infrastructure. Frontline workers were at the forefront in handling efforts to curb its devastating effects on people’s lives. This volume looks at various challenges frontline workers and women, working tirelessly both in the privacy of homes as well as professionals in public spaces faced and their immense contribution to managing the pandemic. It examines the psychosocial and health implications the pandemic and its fallout has had on the professions and personal lives of healthcare workers, sanitary workers, police, teachers, household helps, sex workers, volunteers among others. Analysing the vulnerabilities and the adaptability of nursing personnel, doctors and administrators, it also offers suggestions for rebooting healthcare systems and for putting in place support-systems to mitigate the adverse gendered impacts of the lockdowns and the spread of the disease. Comprehensive and insightful, with essays from experts in different fields, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of public health, healthcare management, gender studies, public policy making, sociology, economics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped life across the world, placing people at risk as our responses to it alter not only health and wellbeing but also governance, economies, social relations, and our interaction with the natural environment. This volume draws globally recognized human rights scholars and practitioners into dialogue over the costs and consequences of the pandemic. With insights and data from fields as diverse as medicine, anthropology, political science, social work, business, and law, these contributors help us make sense of the pandemic’s ongoing effects and its potential impact on future systems and processes. Drawn from two special issues of The Journal of Human Rights—one published within eight months of the first lockdowns, the other published almost two years into the pandemic—this book offers one of the most comprehensive collections of such research available. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of Politics, Sociology, Social Work, Economics, Anthropology, Social and Political Geography, and Public Policy.

The chapters in this volume focus on the future of law and related disciplines: human rights and access to medical care, corruption and money laundering in state procurement, counterfeit medical products, IPR waiver on COVID-19 vaccines, emergency powers, freedom of expression, prison healthcare, the impact on labour law, access to courts and digital court processes, access to education and the impact on insurance law are but a few possible topics which are addressed.

Volume I.B An outbreak of a respiratory disease first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and the causative agent was discovered in January 2020 to be a novel betacoronovirus of the same subgenus as SARS-CoV and named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly disseminated worldwide, with clinical manifestations ranging from mild respiratory symptoms to severe pneumonia and a fatality rate estimated around 2%. Person to person transmission is occurring both in the community and healthcare settings. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently declared the COVID-19 epidemic a public health emergency of international concern. The ongoing outbreak presents many clinical and public health management challenges due to limited understanding of viral pathogenesis, risk factors for infection, natural history of disease including clinical presentation and outcomes, prognostic factors for severe illness, period of infectivity, modes and extent of virus inter-human transmission, as well as effective preventive measures and public health response and containment interventions. There are no antiviral treatment nor vaccine available but fast track research and development efforts including clinical therapeutic trials are ongoing across the world. Managing this serious epidemic requires the appropriate deployment of limited human resources across all cadres of health care and public health staff, including clinical, laboratory, managerial and epidemiological data analysis and risk assessment experts. It presents challenges around public communication and messaging around risk, with the potential for misinformation and disinformation. Therefore, integrated operational research and intervention, learning from experiences across different fields and settings should contribute towards better understanding and managing COVID-19. This Research Topic aims to highlight interdisciplinary research approaches deployed during the COVID-19 epidemic, addressing knowledge gaps and generating evidence for its improved management and control. It will incorporate critical, theoretically informed and empirically grounded original research contributions using diverse approaches, experimental, observational and intervention studies, conceptual framing, expert opinions and reviews from across the world. The Research Topic proposes a multi-dimensional approach to improving the management of COVID-19 with scientific contributions from all areas of virology, immunology, clinical microbiology, epidemiology, therapeutics, communications as well as infection prevention and public health risk assessment and management studies.

This book considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the realisation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Although efforts towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals are ongoing, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on these efforts: accentuating inequities, as well as absorbing resources. This book addresses this impact, as it takes up the question of how to ensure global recovery – in line with the target for the Sustainable Development Goals – after the pandemic. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, but focusing particularly on the role of law and legal frameworks in this recovery, the book considers the effect of the pandemic on key industries such as shipping, insurance, manufacturing, and banking, as well as on the role of the State and non-State actors. Pursuing an explicitly Global South perspective, the book maintains that in the post-COVID era it is the elaboration a rule of law framework that is in sync with both the Global North and South that is crucial if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved. This book will be of value to scholars, students and policymakers working in the general area of law and development, but especially those with specific interests in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.