Background: The covid-19 has reached DRC. Numbers of confirmed cases and deaths are increasing despite the confinement strategy implemented since March 2020. In addition, mainly for economic reasons, the population is claiming for the confinement measures to be waived, which may lead to an increase of the risk of infection, morbidity and mortality related to Covid-19, which calls for a more focused prevention strategy. Nevertheless, Covid-19 prevention approach is more social distancing and hygiene oriented, with few attention to nutrition and other lifestyle aspects such as alcohol use, smoking and physical activity.Objective: to support the DRC health authority’s efforts for empowering populations for better prevention, by designing a more comprehensive approach including nutrition and other lifestyle factors.Design: This paper is a context analysis and a review and viewpoints about different health aspects that should be integrated when designing a national comprehensive strategy to prevent covid-19 in DRC.Conclusion and recommendations: The public health authorities to empower the populations against Covid-19 infection through a comprehensive approach consisting of sensitization at all levels, not only about social distancing and washing hands as it’s being the case, but also and of utmost importance, about nutrition and other lifestyle factors such as alcohol use, smoking and physical activity since they affect immunity. The nutrition factor should include the dietetic management of patients with chronic diseases and/or co-infections. Therefore, task forces for fighting covid-19epidemic in DRC should include nutrition specialists and researchers for more comprehensive approaches against covid-19, to the ultimate interest of the population.

Objective: To describe the prevalence of excess weight (EW) in the context of First Nations (FN) living on the reserves of British Columbia (BC). Design: A cross sectional survey conducted in the frame of my PhD theses, on data collected in 2008 and 2009 through a research study named “First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study” (FNFNES) aiming to document the nutritional status and exposure to contaminants in Canadian First Nations communities living south of the 60th parallel. The survey included anthropometric data, dietetic and sociodemographic and lifestyle data. Subjects and settings: Three levels random sampling: province, communities and households. 493 women and 356 men aged 19 years and over were randomly selected from households in 20 communities. Statistical analysis: For data analysis, the statistical analysis software (SAS 9.1) was used. Results: Among women (n = 493) and men (n = 356) respectively, the prevalences were 44.8% and 35.4% for obesity, and 31.6% and 41.3% for overweight, that is a total of 76.4% and 76.7% of excess weight. Conclusions and applications: This study suggests that the prevalence of excess weight is very high in both adults women and men, which shows a real public health problem in First Nations living on the reserves of British Columbia. Policies aiming reduction of excess weight should be initiated in order to prevent the health and socioeconomic consequences of overweight on that population.

Background: Household or individual food consumption measurement is an issue in the South-Kivu province, DRC. Nutrition professionals and researchers are struggling to perform a 24h recall or any other assessment method due to lack of information regarding how to estimate the food intake of their respondents in a context where the local food contents as used in the markets are not labeled and their weight and/or volume are not known. Moreover, many housekeepers are illiterate, they can’t use weighing scales for the foods consumed, and therefore they can’t provide information about the consumed food amounts. Objective: In this study, we suggest an original approach for improving the food consumption assessment by converting the local food containers in international system units such as grams. This would facilitate the nutrition consultation and prescription and better understand the nutrition situation at clinical and community levels. Design: In this three step approach, the food containers used in local markets for specific foods were measured full (bombed) of the related foods. 3 repeated measures were obtained for each container on the spot in the market, and the average weight was calculated and reported in a table. We describe how to use the collected data in a three step procedure, including 1) How to conduct the interview 2) How to use the local food container measurement data in estimating the food consumption of the respondents in grams and 3) How to use a food composition table to estimate energy and nutrients intakes. Conclusion and recommendations: The proposed approach is to be understood as a first step in in the resolution of the challenge of food consumption assessment. The next step would be the production of a brochure listing all the food container measures and their conversion in international unit system, to be utilized by the nutrition professionals, researchers and students. This approach might be extended to other regions of DRC and other African countries as they all face same problem.