Covid-19: Public Health and Lessons for Africa

Jaji, Rose
External Publications (2020)

in: Christopher Zambakari / Steve Des Georges / Giada Mannino (eds.), The Great Disruption: Covid-19 and the Global Health Crisis, Phoenix: The Zambakari Advisory, 63–70

Information

When the state rolled back funding for social services such as healthcare, education and housing under the neo-liberal Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) implemented from 1980 to 1999, healthcare standards in many African countries deteriorated, while the now-privatized healthcare services became unaffordable to the majority.The poor were the most affected. The rich had the resources to seek treatment in local private healthcare institutions and in foreign countries with world-class hospitals staffed by well-trained and well-remunerated medical personnel. A decade after the SAPs had run their predominantly devastating course in countries such as Ghana and Zimbabwe, African governments pledged to channel more investment into healthcare. In addition, calls for a complete overhaul or refurbishment of existing public health institutions, especially in the media and among ordinary citizens with online platforms from which to speak, have been growing in numbers. Against this background, are these countries and the rest on the African continent now ready to deal with a pandemic with effects as cataclysmic as COVID-19?