“It is welcome news health systems in many countries are beginning to restore essential health services for the millions of people who lost them during the pandemic,” said Dr. Rudi Eggers, director for integrated health services at the World Health Organization (WHO).
“However, we need to ensure that all countries continue to close this gap to recover health services, and use the lessons learned to build more prepared and efficient health systems for the future”.
Recovery, resilience investments
As early as 2023, countries reported experience reduce disruptions in the king of routine health services, but showing the need to invest in recovery we had has stronger resilience for the future, the UN health agency said in a newly published interim report “Fourth round of global pulse research on the continuity of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic: November 2022 – January 2023“.
Among the 139 countries that responded to the survey, the WHO said that disruptions continued in nearly a quarter of services. In the 84 countries where trend analysis is possible, the share of disruptive activities declined on average from 56 per cent in July to September 2020 to 23 per cent in November 2022, to January 2023.
Respondents also explained need for WHO support to address remaining challenges in the context of COVID-19 and beyond. This is especially important to strengthening the health workforce, building monitoring capabilities of health services, and developing a primary health system.
Towards pre-epidemic standards
By the end of 2022, many countries reported partial signs of functional recovery. This includes services for sexual, reproductive, maternal, infant, child, and adolescent health; food; vaccine; and communicable diseases (including malaria, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections).
In a new study, some countries report an intention to increase access to all service delivery platforms and public health services from 2020 to 2021. This shows something necessary action to return to pre-pandemic levels of service delivery and expanded activity, WHO said.
Additionally, the number of countries reporting disruption to their national supply chain system decreased from nearly half (29 of the 59 countries that responded) to about a quarter (18 of the 66 countries that responded he answered) within the last year.
A health worker prepares to administer COVID-19 vaccines in a village in Kasungu, Malawi.
Address backlogs, service interruptions
Despite signs of recovery, service interruptions stop across countries in all regions and income levels, and across many service delivery systems and referral service areas, WHO said.
Demand and supply factors is fueling this trendcausing persistent disruptions, from low levels of health access in the communities, to the limited availability of workers and such related resources as open clinics or available stocks of medicine and products.
Countries are also doing it increasing service backlogs – often include services for screening, diagnosis, and treatment of non-communicable diseases – which can lead to negative consequences as people are denied access to timely treatment.
Progress in coordinating COVID-19 services
Improving the delivery of essential health services is essential, WHO said. Interruptions to such services as health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliation may even have worse health effects than the pandemic itselfespecially among vulnerable people, the health center added.
In another important step towards systemic recovery and transformation, the WHO reported that many countries have made progress in integrating COVID-19 services into regular health service delivery. By 80 to 90 percent of countries have fully integrated the COVID-19 vaccinediagnosis, and case management services such as services for post-COVID-19 conditions such as ‘long COVID’, into the delivery service routine.
Applying lessons learned
However, 80 percent of the 83 countries that responded reported at least one obstacle to increasing access to essential COVID-19 tools, from diagnostics, therapy to personal protection equipment. Other common barriers are health workforce issues and lack of funding.
At the same time, many countries have begun to apply the lessons learned during the pandemic, including through the establishment of several successful service interruption procedures into the delivery service routine.
These include implementation of telemedicine approach, promotion of home maintenance or self-care interventions, approaches for strengthening health workers’ availability, capacities and support methods, innovations in purchasing and delivering medicines and suppliesmore regular local communications, and partnerships with private providers.
In the same way, three quarters of the countries reported additional funding allocation towards long-term systemic recovery, resilience, and preparedness.
Progress tracking
In the fourth round of WHO’s global pulse survey, 222 countries, regions and territories are invited to respond to a web-based survey between November 2022 and January 2023.
The study follows on from previous WHO 2020 and 2021 guidelines: Round 1 (May-September 2020); Round 2 (January-March 2021); and Round 3 (November December 2021) which shows the extent to which the pandemic is affecting the development of essential health services and how countries are taking action.
Learn more about the UN response to the COVID-19 pandemic here.
