1. Health responses during COVID-19
- Author:
- Neha Singh, Kimberley Popple, and James Smith
- Publication Date:
- 08-2024
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- ALNAP: Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance
- Abstract:
- The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented a grave global health challenge, both in terms of scale and severity. The novelty of the virus and the widespread economic impacts of efforts to contain it created an urgent global need to understand the virus, issue accurate guidance and develop effective prevention and treatment. As the pandemic progressed, many contexts already affected by humanitarian crises faced a new health threat, further compounded by the pandemic’s deleterious impact on socioeconomic indicators, food security and essential services. Many other countries, not previously considered as affected by humanitarian crises, had to reorientate to crisis response given the extent of the threat posed by COVID-19. Both the anticipated and realised impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic placed immense pressure on healthcare systems worldwide to both prevent and treat COVID-19 cases – something that has often required complex interventions – while simultaneously maintaining essential health services. As such, policymakers and healthcare workers were pressed to make changes to systems and practices to respond to the direct threat posed by COVID-19, and the indirect impact of COVID-19 response measures on non-COVID-19 health needs. Much of the available COVID-19 guidance primarily focused on higher-income countries, many of which became the early epicentres of the pandemic, and thus far has not necessarily been as relevant or applicable to humanitarian settings where living and working conditions, as well as the wider socio-cultural environment, are very different, and where local health systems may already be weakened by existing humanitarian crises and other challenges. Furthermore, where guidance has been developed for humanitarian settings (Interagency Standing Committee [IASC], 2020; Ramalingam, 2020), the diversity of countries and contexts that fall under such categorisation is such that any guidance produced is not able – nor intended – to be context specific. As such, humanitarian organisations at the country level have initiated adaptive interventions to respond to the specific challenges they have experienced (Lancet, 2020). These adaptations often demonstrate a complex process whereby organisations acknowledge guidance is available to support interventions, but that they must nonetheless adapt or innovate in response to contextual realities (Odlum et al., 2021).
- Topic:
- Health, COVID-19, and Humanitarian Response
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus