COVID-19: Challenges and viewpoints from low-and-middle-income Asian countries perspectives

The crisis of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is growing and has a potential impact on low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in Asian regions, which, have reported less so far. The main purpose of this article is to discuss the challenges of COVID-19 management in Asian LMICs and propose some future guidelines to control the transmission and spread. Due to a highly dense population, low-resourced health system, lack of testing kit, and tracing, the ultimate impact could be lasting. It is highly likely that Asian LMICs were not in the center of receiving high priority by the international community in order to take effective prevention strategies. This might upsurge caseloads. Like the symptoms, mode of transmission varies largely due to a number of unknown clinical features of the virus, defining a risk group only based on some limited criteria such as age and disease with comorbidity could be risky. Recently some of the Asian LMICs launched contact tracing app. However, the study has identified several healthcare challenges in Asian LMICs such as shortage of supply of PPE, inadequate long-term care services, the socio-cultural differences which require utmost consideration. In addition, to control infection and enhance prevention, some pertinent problems need to be addressed. Based on that, some multifactorial approaches can be taken in line with international guidelines. Finally, this paper recommends developing a strong and resilient healthcare monitoring system.