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Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa

COVID-19 has had considerable global impact; however, in sub-Saharan Africa, it is one of several infectious disease priorities. Prioritization is normally guided by disease burden, but the highly age-dependent nature of COVID-19 and that of other infectious diseases make comparisons challenging unl...

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Autores principales: Bell, David, Schultz Hansen, Kristian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8641365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34634773
http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.21-0899
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author Bell, David
Schultz Hansen, Kristian
author_facet Bell, David
Schultz Hansen, Kristian
author_sort Bell, David
collection PubMed
description COVID-19 has had considerable global impact; however, in sub-Saharan Africa, it is one of several infectious disease priorities. Prioritization is normally guided by disease burden, but the highly age-dependent nature of COVID-19 and that of other infectious diseases make comparisons challenging unless considered through metrics that incorporate life-years lost and time lived with adverse health. Therefore, we compared the 2020 mortality and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost estimates for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan African populations with more than 12 months of COVID-19 burden (until the end of March 2021) by applying known age-related mortality to United Nations estimates of the age structure. We further compared exacerbations of disease burden predicted from the COVID-19 public health response. Data were derived from public sources and predicted exacerbations were derived from those published by international agencies. For sub-Saharan African populations north of South Africa, the estimated recorded COVID-19 DALYs lost in 2020 were 3.7%, 2.3%, and 2.4% of those for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria, respectively. Predicted exacerbations of these diseases were greater than the estimated COVID-19 burden. Including South Africa and Lesotho, COVID-19 DALYs lost were < 12% of those for other compared diseases; furthermore, the mortality of compared diseases were dominant in all age groups younger than 65 years. This analysis suggests the relatively low impact of COVID-19. Although all four epidemics continue, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria remain far greater health priorities based on their disease burdens. Therefore, resource diversion to COVID-19 poses a high risk of increasing the overall disease burden and causing net harm, thereby further increasing global inequities in health and life expectancy.
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spelling pubmed-86413652021-12-10 Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa Bell, David Schultz Hansen, Kristian Am J Trop Med Hyg Articles COVID-19 has had considerable global impact; however, in sub-Saharan Africa, it is one of several infectious disease priorities. Prioritization is normally guided by disease burden, but the highly age-dependent nature of COVID-19 and that of other infectious diseases make comparisons challenging unless considered through metrics that incorporate life-years lost and time lived with adverse health. Therefore, we compared the 2020 mortality and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost estimates for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan African populations with more than 12 months of COVID-19 burden (until the end of March 2021) by applying known age-related mortality to United Nations estimates of the age structure. We further compared exacerbations of disease burden predicted from the COVID-19 public health response. Data were derived from public sources and predicted exacerbations were derived from those published by international agencies. For sub-Saharan African populations north of South Africa, the estimated recorded COVID-19 DALYs lost in 2020 were 3.7%, 2.3%, and 2.4% of those for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria, respectively. Predicted exacerbations of these diseases were greater than the estimated COVID-19 burden. Including South Africa and Lesotho, COVID-19 DALYs lost were < 12% of those for other compared diseases; furthermore, the mortality of compared diseases were dominant in all age groups younger than 65 years. This analysis suggests the relatively low impact of COVID-19. Although all four epidemics continue, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria remain far greater health priorities based on their disease burdens. Therefore, resource diversion to COVID-19 poses a high risk of increasing the overall disease burden and causing net harm, thereby further increasing global inequities in health and life expectancy. The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2021-12 2021-10-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8641365/ /pubmed/34634773 http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.21-0899 Text en © The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Bell, David
Schultz Hansen, Kristian
Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa
title Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_full Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_fullStr Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_full_unstemmed Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_short Relative Burdens of the COVID-19, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS Epidemics in Sub-Saharan Africa
title_sort relative burdens of the covid-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hiv/aids epidemics in sub-saharan africa
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8641365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34634773
http://dx.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.21-0899
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