It became clear soon after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, that not much was known about the management of pandemics in the current healthcare context. This topic had previously received little to no attention in health sciences and other training curricula.   

As the Covid-19 pandemic evolves, many critical issues arise impacting on teaching, learning, and healthcare delivery through the spectrum of primary to quaternary care, public health and the social determinants of health. This peer-reviewed volume brings together many of the lessons learnt from the outset of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in an attempt to equip pandemic planning and prevention programmes as we move into the future. The book has brought together a total of 56 authors with expertise in medicine, health care, social sciences, health economics, ethics and the law to share their experiences and directions as we reposition ourselves into the years to follow. It has been edited by eminent leaders in their disciplines. 

1. Introduction to Pandemics and Healthcare. Principles, Processes and Practice 
2. Pandemics: Global Health Security
3. An overview of ethical issues in the context of pandemics and healthcare
4. Selected medico-legal issues relating to South Africa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic
5. Health research, ethics and pandemics: Challenges and Recommendations. 
6. The role of the news media during pandemics
7. Corruption, leadership and the corrosion of public health system capabilities in South Africa
8. An understanding of the supply, distribution and use of personal protective equipment during pandemics
9. Pandemics, health equity and the social determinants of health 
10. Pandemics: Managing psychosocial dimensions for the public good
11. Why health economic input and other economic considerations are necessary when managing pandemics
12. Curriculum change and teaching innovations in health sciences: An essential requirement in the era of pandemics
13. eHealth in the era of pandemics
14. Data science and artificial intelligence in the management of Covid-19
15. The Gauteng Department of Health, a showcase 
16. The development of vaccines and immunological therapies in pandemics 
17. Epidemiology, diagnostics and surveillance: Applications during pandemics
18. Covid-19 in South Africa: Lessons from implementing a new national hospital surveillance platform 
19. Mental health, psychiatric disease, and COVID-19 in urban South Africa 
20. Pandemics and primary health care
21. Pandemics and critical care
22. Pandemics and management of infectious diseases
23. Pandemics and paediatrics
24. Provision of maternal and reproductive healthcare services during pandemics
25. Pandemics and the surgical disciplines

Academics, researchers, students in training, both at under and postgraduate levels in the health sciences, legal professionals and social scientists including economists