We are chasing COVID 19 off a cliff.
The majority of our population, who don't already seek modern medical care are now even more afraid to visit hospitals. For this reason work at hospitals has slowed down.
Health education given about COVID 19 doesn't seem balanced based. Based on the world population review, in our country 1984 peoples die every day and a big chunk of that number is by medical reason. Remember why we let RVI +ve mothers to breast feed, inspite of clear CDC recommendation that "the best way to prevent MTCT through breast milk is not to breastfeed" We rather take the risk with the RVI than the malnutrition. We should apply the same principles in this scenario.
Let me refer the EDHS 2016 and mention the areas which will be affected more by the decreased patient flow. In Ethiopia, 73% births occur at home with a high maternal mortality rate of 412/100,000 live births and 81 % don't recieve any postnatal care. "According to Health data .org neonatal disorders are the number one causes of death in Ethiopia". Back to EDHS, the basic vaccination coverage for all eight basic vaccines is 40 % .
You know there isn't much recent data about our morbidities but let's take a report by "world life expectancy" to have a general picture. Diarrheal diseases account for 8% of deaths in Ethiopia, 3.81% are due to Tuberculosis, 7.38% are due to Coronary Heart disease, 3.21 l are due to HIV, stroke 6.23% , cirrhosis 2.24% and meningitis 2.8%. If we consider the world population review report of 1984 death per day in Ethiopia. We will have rough estimation of our disease burden.
©Dr.Kirubel Tesfaye
