Poor and Middle Income countries will see more deaths from HIV, malaria and tuberculosis with coronavirus pandemic already disrupting the health services in these countries.
In the next five years, deaths from these diseases could rise by 10 per cent, 20 per cent and 36 per cent respectively, a predictive study said. It said that the deaths could be almost similar to the direct impact of coronavirus pandemic, the study said.
The study noted that a small disruption in the health services with respect to the three diseases could have devastating consequences for the millions of people. It also said that the significant progress against these diseases in the last decades would go waste with coronavirus pandemic. However, they noted that the risks could be alleviated if countries maintain take more preventive measures.
The disruption of supply of antiretroviral AIDS drugs to patients would be the greatest impact on HIV, the study said. With respect to malaria, they said that distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets would be affected that would worsen the situation.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations AIDS agency had already reported of shortages of drugs.
