A key flip-side of Covid-19 is the weaker provision of healthcare

I make no apology for returning to this subject because I think we risk losing the plot due to our own hysteria bordering on obsession.

Do not get me wrong here: Covid-19 is real and serious and we have a long way to go to master and contain it. The big challenge is how to do this on the core medical side and not risk plummeting or being plunged into economic and social meltdown.

And let us get it in perspective. Yes, it is virulent and we are still trying to understand how to tackle and tame it and, eventually, come to terms with it. But it must not be at the expense of everything else — and I am afraid to say that there is a danger that we are heading in that direction.

Step back a little and count how much time, energy and resources is devoted to dealing with and telling us all about Covid-19. It is massive; which begs the question as to whether it is not at the expense of our overall mandate and objective of providing and improving healthcare in the country.

Take vaccination and vaccine-preventable diseases, for example.

DISRUPTION TO VACCINATION

Fact one is that the pandemic is “causing significant disruption to vaccination efforts and to the surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases on the continent”, according a recent WHO report.

Fact two is that even brief “interruptions of vaccination activities make outbreaks more likely to occur, putting children and other vulnerable groups more at risk of life-threatening diseases”.

Fact three, “Africa has been experiencing a resurgence of measles”. Mass vaccination campaigns in a number of African countries “have been suspended because of Covid-19, leaving around 21 million children who would have been vaccinated unprotected”.

That is just measles. Lower respiratory track infections kill nearly a million Africans a year and account for nearly 10 per cent of all deaths. This is followed by HIV at eight per cent, diarrhoeal diseases at 7.5 per cent, and malaria and TB at 4.6 per cent each.

DIVERTED FROM GRAND KILLERS

Look at it this way: Even if a fraction of time, money and medical support is diverted from tackling these grand killers due to our coronavirus war, then we are inviting an epidemic of mega proportions that will make Covid-19 look like a flea bite.

Something else we must be realistic about: Our medical services are thinly spread and grossly overstretched at the best of times. We do not spend or allocate enough money to them because we do not have it and also the lion’s share of our budget goes to the day-to-day running expenses rather than provision of goods and services.

If we overload this fragile public health system with a multitude of cases, then that could be the straw that will break the back of the camel that is basic healthcare obligation.

A LESSON

Covid-19 should be taken as a lesson that goes well beyond the medical side. It has exposed many structural weaknesses throughout the country and we should take this as a serious lesson to get back to the basics and put several things right.

All, including the media, must step back from dramatising Covid-19 as if it is some horror movie. Yes, it is serious, and we don’t know at times where it is going and at what pace. But life goes on and we must take it as a learning curve and a very valuable one at that.

Let me give an analogy that is closer to home. The Nairobi Hospital, of which I am a board member, has entered into an agreement with the UN for an international Covid-19 hospital.

Time will tell whether that was a wise decision or not. But what we do know is that the core operation of the hospital has many centres of excellence and professionalism but also many challenges.

Improving on and upgrading its core operation is a work in progress as there are many key areas that need attention, money, resources and, in some cases, restructuring. One of the pertinent questions is, will such an additional mega operation dilute or divert valuable focus from the core operation?

We need to take a holistic view and, indeed, overview of our basic healthcare mandate and not take our eye off the ball because of Covid-19.

Mr Shaw is a public policy and economic analyst. [email protected].