Medicine has recovered from the pandemic – Kommersant

The World Health Organization (WHO) effectively declared the end of the pandemic on May 5, saying that COVID-19 is becoming a “permanent public health problem” but is no longer an international emergency. This is evidenced by the recovery of health systems in most countries of the world, recorded by WHO analysts. Difficulties, however, remain – some representatives of national ministries of health interviewed by WHO complain about the lack of health workers and health monitoring services, as well as the imperfection of models for the provision of medical care.

The health systems of most countries are gradually restoring their work, as the spread of coronavirus has ceased to be a pandemic. This was announced on May 5 by WHO Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus. “The WHO Emergency Committee has recommended that we declare an end to the public health emergency due to the spread of the coronavirus,” the head of the organization said.

Thus, the pandemic lasted just over three years – the first cases of the disease were recorded in March 2020. During this time, about 20 million people died from coronavirus, according to WHO estimates. Of these, 6.9 million died directly from COVID-19, the rest from complications of existing diseases caused by the virus.

As the coronavirus mutated and its symptoms became milder, most countries around the world were able to get their health systems back up and running, according to a WHO report released yesterday, based on a survey of health ministries in 139 countries. The organization is conducting such a survey for the fourth time – the first was organized in May 2020.

According to him, the proportion of countries in which health systems are experiencing disruptions due to the spread of coronavirus at the beginning of 2023 was only 23% – at the height of the pandemic, in July 2020, this figure was 59%. The proportion of countries with disruptions in primary health care services fell from 53% to 26%, emergency care from 35% to 16%.

As expected, health care systems in high-income countries showed faster recovery rates, with only 12% of all health care services affected by outages.

In upper middle-income countries, the figure was 21%, lower-middle income countries 26%, and low-income countries 25%.

The share of countries that reported interruptions in the supply of equipment, medical supplies and medical devices necessary for uninterrupted operation also almost halved, to 24%. Most often, at the beginning of this year, respondents complained about the difficulties with the supply of medical supplies (82%), medicines (77%) and reagents for laboratories (75%).

Most representatives of the countries surveyed declared their readiness (despite the return of the focus on the treatment of chronic noncommunicable diseases) to take preparatory measures in case of a new outbreak of any virus. Most often (64%), respondents noted that they reserved additional funds for such a case to support the national health system. 60% reported an improvement in the infrastructure necessary for the diagnosis of diseases, 54% – informing the population about the importance of prevention.

At the same time, the absolute majority of the ministries of health (90%) noted that they do not have enough resources to work effectively.

30% complained about the lack of medical workers, 28% – about the difficulties in implementing services for monitoring the health of the population at the national level, 20% stated the need to reform the healthcare model existing in their country.

It should be noted that Russia, although it has restored the provision of planned state medical care to the population in the same volume (this is indirectly evidenced by the slowdown in the growth rate of the private medicine market, according to Rosstat, in 2021 they were equal to 26%, in 2022 – 8% ), is also experiencing difficulties in terms of the sufficiency of medical workers. In order to restore their interest in working in the public sector after the completion of the covid surcharge program, the Ministry of Health has developed a new monetary incentive system (more see “Kommersant” dated January 19).

Anastasia Manuylova