Outside In | Malaria’s big lesson for coronavirus pandemic: get ready for a long battle
- The coronavirus-induced disruption to diagnosis and treatment of malaria has been devastating for the decades-long effort to eradicate this major killer
- The history of humankind playing catch-up with this evolving disease, still without an effective vaccine, holds a lesson for us
Unless, of course, you suffer from one of them, in which case, wherever you live, you have faced treatment cancellations, disruption of transport services to and from hospitals or clinics, medical supply shortages, and expert medical staff reassigned.
And you have probably suffered extreme anxiety over whether visiting a hospital where coronavirus patients are being treated is the most sensible risk to take.
As Dr Bente Mikkelsen, director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Non-communicable Diseases noted last June, “not only are people with non-communicable diseases more vulnerable to becoming seriously ill with the virus, but many are unable to access treatment they need to manage their illness”.
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Indian gravediggers work 24-hour shifts as coronavirus death toll soars
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation noted that the pandemic has set the world back 25 years in terms of vaccine coverage.