More than half a billion people in the world may be in extreme poverty because of the pandemic, the progress of human progress in the issue of universal access to health care services. This was stated by the World Health Organization and the World Bank.
In two complementary reports published in connection with the international day of universal health coverage celebrated on December 12, they stated that the pandemic led to the failures in the provision of medical services and caused excessive tension in health protection systems. Because of this, for the first time in 10 years, the population coverage has decreased, the mortality from tuberculosis and malaria has grown.
Pandemic caused “the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, so people became harder to pay for treatment.” Such a situation “pushes more than half a billion people in extreme poverty, because they have to pay for these services from their pocket.”
According to forecasts of the report authors, financial difficulties, “most likely become more intense,” given the growth of poverty, the fall in income and the fact that States face an increasingly difficult situation in the field of tax revenues. It is emphasized that before the pandemic “almost a billion people spent more than 10% of their budget for health care.”