TY - JOUR
T1 - A twin disaster
T2 - Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and a cerebrospinal meningitis outbreak simultaneously in a low-resource country
AU - Adjorlolo, Samuel
AU - Egbenya, Daniel Lawer
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020/12/31
Y1 - 2020/12/31
N2 - Managing a deadly pandemic in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is challenging. The task becomes tougher when there is an outbreak of an equally deadly disease. This is the present situation of Ghana, a low-resource country, that is confronted with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) outbreak. Apart from the resource constraint at both governmental and individual levels, such a situation affects the overall wellbeing of ordinary citizens as well as healthcare professionals, particularly those in high-risk areas. Perhaps, more than ever, we have to ensure equitable distribution of scarce healthcare resources in our effort to manage this ‘twin disaster’ of COVID-19 and CSM. We evaluated Ghana’s situation (outbreak response) and recommended measures to help us navigate this conundrum of a public health crisis.
AB - Managing a deadly pandemic in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) is challenging. The task becomes tougher when there is an outbreak of an equally deadly disease. This is the present situation of Ghana, a low-resource country, that is confronted with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) outbreak. Apart from the resource constraint at both governmental and individual levels, such a situation affects the overall wellbeing of ordinary citizens as well as healthcare professionals, particularly those in high-risk areas. Perhaps, more than ever, we have to ensure equitable distribution of scarce healthcare resources in our effort to manage this ‘twin disaster’ of COVID-19 and CSM. We evaluated Ghana’s situation (outbreak response) and recommended measures to help us navigate this conundrum of a public health crisis.
KW - COVID-19
KW - LMIC
KW - cerebrospinal meningitis
KW - equity
KW - healthcare resources
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089234235&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/16549716.2020.1795963
DO - 10.1080/16549716.2020.1795963
M3 - Article
C2 - 32762300
AN - SCOPUS:85089234235
SN - 1654-9880
VL - 13
JO - Global Health Action
JF - Global Health Action
IS - 1
M1 - 1795963
ER -