Maintain Essential Health Services During Coronavirus Pandemic: WHO

Strengthening and maintaining essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic should be a core priority in the South-East Asian region, reports World Health Organization (WHO).

A rapid assessment of 25 essential services carried out by WHO in May showed significant disruptions to essential health services across the world, including the WHO South-East Asia Region. Routine immunization and supplementary measles and rubella campaigns were disrupted in eight of the region's 11 countries.

‘Since the outbreak of coronavirus, repurposing of health workers, closure of outpatient services, cancellation of elective care, insufficient personal protective equipment, and changes in treatment policy has significantly impacted the delivery of essential services. ’

According to the apex organization, both out-patient and in-patient services for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and others have been greatly affected. The most affected service has been mental health, which is critical in these difficult times.

"Across the region, family planning, antenatal care, and institutional childbirth services have been reduced significantly, impacting our capacity to accelerate reductions in maternal and neonatal mortality," said Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director WHO South-East Asia Region said.

Health system pressures, reduced service utilization, damaged supply chains, and the potential for reductions in health spending could inhibit progress towards universal health coverage and weaken the battle against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). If case detection for TB drops by 50 percent over a period of three months, the region could return to 2012 levels.

"The pandemic has put immense strain on health systems across the South-East Asia Region. We must fast track efforts and do all we can to avoid that happening while continuing efforts to break COVID-19 transmission chains," said Dr. Singh, in a virtual meeting with health ministers from the region.

She said that previous disease outbreaks have shown that disruption to essential services caused by an outbreak can be more deadly than the outbreak itself.

Changes in health-seeking behavior constrained physical access, and financial hardship has limited service uptake.

Countries in the region have been developing and implementing innovative ways to overcome these challenges - leveraging the potential of telemedicine, developing novel supply chains and medicine dispensary options, and better engaging the private sector and communities.

"We must strengthen our evidence and knowledge base on how essential services can be maintained. We must continue to innovate and accelerate our efforts to sustain our gains while sharing our experiences and learnings and adapting policies to suit local contexts and transmission scenarios," Dr. Singh said.

Boosting health system resilience with a focus on primary health care is key to maintaining and strengthening essential health services amid our new normal, the Regional Director said, adding that the emergence and spread of COVID-19 have reiterated the critical importance of building strong primary health care systems that are able to withstand acute events while continuing to provide the services required to meet most people's needs.

Communities must continue to remain at the center of the response, she said. Attention should be given to understanding the social impact of the pandemic and how it affects the health-seeking behavior of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups and their access to services.

"Strengthening and maintaining essential health services has been one of the region's core priorities. The health and well-being of the region's near 2 billion people are at stake, and with it the sustainable development of more than a quarter of the world's population," Dr. Singh added.

The Regional Director and health ministers are expected to review and further discuss essential health services at their virtual ministerial roundtable meeting next month during the seventy-third Regional Committee Session of WHO South-East Asia Region.

Source: IANS