“What iftropical diseases had as much attention as Covid?”, asked Francine Ntoumi, director of the Congolese Foundation for Medical Research, recently. Ntoumi was really asking two questions. What is happening to all the other diseases that ravage the global south as the world’s attention has focused on Covid-19? And why can’t we put as much energy and resources into tackling diseases such as malaria and TB as we have into stopping the coronavirus?
So far, around 1.5 million people have died from Covid-19 worldwide. That’s the same number that tuberculosis kills every year, year after year. Some studies predict that between now and 2025, up to 1.4 million more people will die from TB than normal as cases go undiagnosed and untreatedbecause of Covid lockdowns. Other studies suggest that deaths from malaria could increase by more than a third over the next five years. In India, registration of new TB cases between January and June this year dropped by more than 25% compared with the same period last year, while more than a third of people with TB found health facilities closed because of Covid-19 restrictions. In Uganda, the number of maternal deaths almost doubled in the first three months of this year, largely because there were far fewer births in hospitals and clinics.
posted by f.sheikh