The health emergency also led to the worst global economic crisis since 1930, making it even more difficult to pay for health care.
The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a brake in the battle towards Universal Health Coverage, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank (WB).
The results obtained in the study, presented in conjunction with Universal Coverage Day, conclude that COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the economic capacity of people and governments to guarantee quality healthcare.
In addition to the collapse of healthcare services around the world, efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic also led to the worst global economic crisis since 1930, which, according to these organizations, made it even more difficult to pay for healthcare.
The data provided by the report shows that, prior to the pandemic, 500 million people were pushed into extreme poverty due to the inability to financially cope with health care services.
The director of Health, Nutrition and Population of the World Bank, Juan Pablo Uribe, recalled that already before the pandemic, almost 1 billion people dedicated more than 10% of the family budget to health.
“This is unacceptable, especially since the poorest people are the most affected. Within a restricted fiscal space, governments will have to make difficult decisions to protect and increase health budgets, ”he stressed.
Experts agree that the solution to this problem is for governments to increase public spending on health to exempt the most vulnerable population from the economic burden derived from health services.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged governments to immediately resume and accelerate efforts to ensure that each of their citizens can access health services without fear of financial consequences.
“Before the pandemic, many countries had made progress, but it was not strong enough. This time we must build health systems that are strong enough to withstand shocks, such as the next pandemic, and stay on course for universal health coverage, “he added.
To do this, as the study by the WHO and the World Bank states, governments, which have also seen their economic capacity diminished as a result of COVID-19, must employ stricter fiscal policies.
WB economist Ajay Tandon suggested raising taxes on additional health-damaging goods, such as tobacco and alcoholic beverages.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the World Bank has deployed more than $ 157 billion to respond to this crisis.
In addition, it has created a program for the purchase and distribution of vaccines in 60 low- and middle-income countries (half of them in Africa) that has a financing item of 20,000 million dollars until the end of 2022. (I)
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