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The shift in health resources to fight Covid-19 has led many people in poor countries to go untreated for other illnesses, portending thousands of excess deaths, one of the major donors said. tuberculosis and AIDS control programs.
The grim assessment was included in a report released on Wednesday by the Geneva-based Global Fund, which said the disruption caused by the pandemic has had a “Catastrophic impact” on the fight against tuberculosis, which typically kills more people worldwide each year than any other infectious disease. Tuberculosis is estimated to have killed more than one billion people over the past 200 years.
Global Fund director Peter Sands told Reuters that in some countries, such as those in Africa’s Sahel region, the focus on Covid-19 could kill more TB and AIDS victims than the number deaths from the pandemic. The lockdowns have disrupted some services, he said, while health resources in places like India and Africa have been shifted to the Covid-19 response.
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“Essentially, about a million fewer people were treated for TB in 2020 than in 2019, and I’m afraid that will inevitably mean hundreds of thousands of people will die. Sands said.
Deaths from tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria were on a downward trajectory in more than 100 countries where the Global Fund invests. The group, which is supported by governments and private sector partners, provides more than $ 4 billion a year to fight these diseases.
But with Covid-19 taking hold since last year, those efforts have been undermined. The number of people treated for drug-resistant TB in countries where the fund invests fell 19% in 2020, while those reached by AIDS prevention services fell by 11%. At the same time, there was a 16% drop in the number of HIV-positive TB patients on treatment. HIV testing has dropped by 22%. Progress Against Malaria ” blocked “, said the Global Fund.
The growing number of untreated or undiagnosed cases of tuberculosis and AIDS can snowball. A person with tuberculosis, for example, can transmit the disease to 10 to 15 other people each year. There were 10 million new cases of tuberculosis and 1.4 million deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
In March, the WHO estimated that around 500,000 more people than usual may have died of tuberculosis last year, as treatment cuts delayed the fight against the disease by more than a decade.
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The devastating blow to tuberculosis and AIDS programs marks one of many deadly side effects of the pandemic response, ranging from an increase in alcohol-related deaths in the UK to the increase of child suicides during Covid-19 lockdowns. Deaths from heart disease have also increased, as more cases of cardiovascular disease have gone undiagnosed.
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