How Covid is making it tougher to tackle TB, AIDS, malaria and child health
▻https://theprint.in/health/how-covid-is-making-it-tougher-to-tackle-tb-aids-malaria-and-child-health/443658
▻https://d2c7ipcroan06u.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/WhatsApp-Image-2019-12-02-at-3.49.33-PM.jpeg
Last month, the Stop TB Partnership published a modelling analysis predicting the long-term impact of the Covid-19 response on worldwide tuberculosis control. In the authors’ baseline scenario of a two-month lockdown followed by a gradual recovery to normal TB services over a two-month period, they estimated a 4 per cent increase in TB deaths between 2020 and 2025, equivalent to 342,000 excess deaths. In their worst-case scenario of a three-month lockdown followed by a 10-month recovery period, it was 16 per cent and 1.4 million excess deaths. This would represent a setback of at least five to eight years in the fight against TB.
Modelling for the WHO suggests that a six-month interruption to the supply of antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to more than half a million excess deaths from HIV in 2020 alone, more than doubling death toll of 2018 and making this year the worst in the region since 2008. “The terrible prospect of half a million more people in Africa dying of AIDS-related illnesses is like stepping back into history,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO.
For malaria, 27 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 85 per cent of malaria deaths in the region, were scheduled to undertake their three-yearly mass insecticide-treated net (ITN) distribution campaigns this year, a mainstay of malaria control. In the worst-case scenario of wholesale disruption to ITN distribution and a 75 per cent reduction in access to effective antimalarial treatment, modelling by the WHO predicts a total of 768,000 malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa this year, 70 per cent of them children under five, a figure higher than the global malaria death toll reported in the year 2000.
Most worrisome among all this bad news is the worsening of global poverty, a major driver of poor health. The latest World Bank report predicts a 5.2 per cent contraction in the world economy in 2020, the deepest global recession since World War Two. Another estimate suggests there could be increases in poverty of a substantial magnitude — up to 400 million new poor living under the $1.90 poverty line, over 500 million new poor living under the poverty lines of $3.20 and $5.50.
Mathematical modelling can only give an estimate of what may be coming — nobody can precisely predict the future—but what we learn from the models should give us pause. Covid-19 is a novel and severe threat to human health, and an unprecedented draw on our global attention, but we must not forget that the old threats remain.
Par Jacob Bigio (je découvre le vrai nom de ce vieux pote de voyage) et Madhukar Pai.
C’est un texte important. Qui ne dit pas que le Covid-19 n’est pas une menace importante, la preuve la surmortalité n’est pas si énorme (on ne sait pas ce qui se serait passé si on n’avait rien fait parce que justement on a fait quelque chose)... mais qui argumente bien sur ce truc qu’on savait dès le confinement : il ne faut pas en oublier les autres nécessités de santé.
Je complète avec une anecdote : un médecin se plaint que l’attention exclusive au Covid et le discours politique et médiatique anxiogène ait vidé son cabinet. Pas seulement parce qu’il a perdu son revenu pendant deux mois mais parce que parmi ses patient·es certain·es avaient des maladies chroniques qui nécessitent une surveillance.
Itou cette #moraline qui s’est délibérément attaquée à tout ce qui pouvait faire le bien-être des gens comme l’accès aux espaces naturels, et ce sans justification sanitaire... au contraire.
►https://reporterre.net/Priver-les-Francais-de-nature-la-societe-de-controle-jusqu-a-l-absurde
Itou les Ehpad, les accouchements solo (alors que le suicide est la première cause de mortalité des mères dans l’année qui suit), les enterrements où y’a moins de monde qu’au supermarché.
Arbitrage de merde.
