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A doctor badly affected in South Africa says calming the disease in one position means nothing if it’s elsewhere
Recently, one of my patients borrowed cash from a loan shark just to get to the hospital in a personal taxi. When we had the challenge of locating the results of his check, she rightly collapsed furiously. He probably couldn’t find the cash to get home. The patient, an elderly woman, was so frightened by COVID-19 that she had been away from the hospital for days and died a few hours after arriving, due to an infection of the treatable urinary tract that she had entered her bloodstream.
As a doctor at a small rural hospital here in South Africa, I have noticed the countless tactics in which COVID-19 has replaced life and health care, which has had tragic consequences, even indirectly.
South Africa is adapting to a COVID-19 hot zone, with more than 470,000 cases shown, the fifth highest in the world. There are now more than 11,000 people shown in a country of just 58 million people.
According to a report by the South African Medical Research Council, there were 17,000 more deaths between 6 May and 14 July compared to knowledge of more than two years. This reflects what I see every day: deaths are increasing, and some are due to COVID-19, but many more are the result of others who cannot get to the hospital due to deteriorating economic situation or delaying treatment until it is too late. This includes others with minor disorders, such as my patient with an undeniable disease. Urinary tract infection that was afraid to pass into the hospital and those seeking remedy for serious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB).
In South Africa, nearly 8 million more people live with HIV. In a country where just over a decade ago the disease killed more than 800 people every day, it’s terrifying to see a scenario spread in which other people can no longer access life-saving treatments. And according to a recent report, other people living with HIV or tuberculosis are twice as likely to die of COVID-19.
I was a little boy at the height of the AIDS epidemic here, but I still don’t forget when an HIV diagnosis was a guaranteed death sentence. Today, HIV is a chronic disease that can be effectively controlled through treatment. I have noticed patients absolutely remodeled, from emaciated and listless to healthy and disgustingly rich, after only a few months of antiretroviral treatment. It’s amazing to me, even as a doctor. Unless we find a way to the pandemic, this transformative progress may be threatened. What’s at stake may not be bigger.
What can be done?
I’m just a doctor trying to make patients as productive as possible, but there’s not much a doctor or small hospital can do. We want a global plan. This pandemic doesn’t care where you come from or where you live, closing a post doesn’t mean anything if he’s furious somewhere else and we have to completely suppress him.
We have noticed what can happen when the world unerstices to solve major problems, as happened at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The emergency plan for AIDS has made a surprising difference, halving AIDS and new infection-related deaths around the world.
First, the Global Fund has a new plan to combat COVID-19 and also to ensure that all the progress we have made towards epidemics such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria is not lost, but it wants support. The US Congress has not been able to do so. But it’s not the first time You have the opportunity to give a special touch to the Global Fund’s investment in its round of relief for lack of COVID, which is currently being negotiated. 19, and resources for long-standing systems on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Every day I do as productive as possible for my patients. Every day I go out to breathe through the anguish and worry of failing and being in poor health myself. I’m going to move on. But now we want systems and countries to strengthen. If the global can be combined once to combat a fatal epidemic, and if America can simply be a leader in this fight, it may actually happen again, right?The consultation is yes?
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American Arab Scientist
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