COVID-19: Impacts on Health and Health Systems

By: Rais Akhtar

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Synopsis: COVID-19 devastated countries in both developed and developing countries. Huge levels of mortality occurred in developed countries like USA, UK, France as well as in many developing countries like Brazil, India, South Africa. Until April 13 2024, the world suffered with 704,753,890 infections and close to 7,010,681 deaths. In the US alone 1,219,487 deaths were reported until April 13,2024. Prevalence of COVID-19 had caused a significant decline in the number of patients seeking routine health services related to communicable and cardiovascular diseases in almost all countries belonging to both developed and developing regions. COVID-19 made a massive dent in the diagnostics sector with a steep fall in patient volumes since the beginning of 2020. The pandemic developed an haunting sense of fear among people, which eventually impacted hospital/clinic and lab visits. Regular check-ups became cumbersome, stressful and time consuming. Dr. Anthony Fauci, former advisor to former US President Joe Biden asserted that domestic policy failure, and the lack of a public health infrastructure for handling an outbreak of such proportions has resulted such huge human loss. The focus of this book is to take a close look at case studies from various countries and find the lessons learned including rise in mental illnesses and development of health care post COVID-19, to remain ready for any such pandemic in the future.