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Health Reporter
Across the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed widespread inequalities that could significantly affect the attainment of targets in HIV, TB and malaria programmes, a new world health report has shown.
According to the report, “State of inequality: HIV, tuberculosis and malaria”, testing, treatment and prevention programmes across the world have suffered widespread interruptions leading to changes in routine services and heightened stigma, discrimination and fear.
The report represents an important step forward in understanding how inequalities are hindering the fight against the three diseases. It shows that while national averages of HIV, TB and malaria indicators have generally improved in the past decade, the poorest, least educated and rural subgroups tend to remain at a disadvantage.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has reversed years of progress in TB, with widespread disruptions to services and increased vulnerability to TB. Most notably, there was a large global reduction in the number of people newly diagnosed with TB between 2019 (7,1 million) and 2020 (5,8 million) as many countries reassigned staff, equipment and finances from TB to the Covid-19 response,” the report stated.
Malaria programmes have also experienced disruptions to vector control activities, surveillance, diagnosis and treatment due to the pandemic.
The report said in 2020, malaria diagnoses and treatment in African facilities fell by 17 percent and 15 percent respectively while other facilities were stocked out of antimalarial medicines for children under 5 years.
It also noted that high inequalities were evident between families affected by drug-resistant TB or drug-susceptible TB.
The percentage of families facing catastrophic costs due to drug-susceptible TB was variable across countries, ranging from 17,2 percent in Lesotho to 79 percent in Zimbabwe.
The gap was widest in Lesotho, where there was a 75 percentage point difference in catastrophic costs between families affected by drug-resistant TB (92 percent) and drug-susceptible TB (17,2 percent).
“Tackling inequities in HIV, TB and malaria is key to accelerating progress and closing the persistent gaps in access to care and health outcomes across population subgroups.
“The impact of monitoring activities, however, lies in their application. Developing technical capacity for health inequality monitoring is important to ensure the process is rigorous and impactful and generates change,” said the report.
The report called for the compilation of more and better data on inequalities as well as regular and dedicated monitoring of inequalities in the fight against HIV, TB and malaria, which should be complemented by other quantitative and qualitative studies.
Although the Zimbabwean Government has been striving to maintain a balance between the Covid response and service delivery for other diseases, there have been areas that have been affected due to the high costs associated with the pandemic.
According to the Zimbabwe Doctors for human Rights the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities which the world had already been afflicted with.
In a statement to mark International Human Rights Day yesterday, the organisation said equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, by which it means poor countries can get the same level of vaccines as rich countries, would help to end the pandemic while also addressing shortcomings in other sectors of healthcare delivery.
Online Reporter