Hyderabad: As coronavirus pandemic continues its rapid spread, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has cautioned against the straining of global health systems.
Due to the surge in the number of positive cases around the world, the demand for health facilities and health care workers has increased tenfold.
Resulting in which the health systems are getting overwhelmed and become highly vulnerable to becoming "overstretched and unable to operate effectively."
If we go back into history, we can very well understand that during the previous pandemics when the health systems were overwhelmed, mortality from vaccine-preventable and other treatable conditions saw a sharp rise.
The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the resilience of robust health systems around the world.
WHO mentioned that during the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak, the increased number of deaths caused by measles, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis attributable to health system failures exceeded deaths from Ebola.
"The best defense against any outbreak is a strong health system," stressed WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
"COVID-19 is revealing how fragile many of the world’s health systems and services are, forcing countries to make difficult choices on how to best meet the needs of their people," he added.
To help countries cope up with these challenges, WHO has provided guidelines in balancing the demands of responding directly to COVID-19 while maintaining essential health service delivery, and mitigating the risk of system collapse.
WHO has urged the countries to identify essential services that will be prioritized in their efforts to maintain continuity of service delivery.
For instance, some of the essential services include routine vaccination, reproductive health services including care during pregnancy and childbirth, care of young infants and older adults, management of mental health conditions as well as non-communicable diseases and infectious diseases like HIV, malaria, and TB.
WHO also advised that countries to take highest precautions, maintain good hygiene, and the provision of adequate supplies including personal protective equipment. The safety of the front-line workers should be strictly taken care of.
WHO said that the health systems should be well-organised and it should be very well prepared. By this we can continue to provide equitable access to essential service delivery throughout an emergency, limiting direct mortality and avoiding increased indirect mortality.
WHO stressed upon the fact that people's trust in the system is very important. People need to be informed, transparent communications with the public and strong community engagements are very crucial.
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