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In a statement sent to journalists, the World Health Organization said the survey conducted from November to December 2021 showed that services were “severely affected” with “little or no improvement” from the previous survey in early 2021.
The results of this survey highlight the importance of taking urgent action to address key health system challenges, restore services and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization said.
In fact, emergency care, which includes ambulance and emergency services, has worsened, with 36 percent of countries reporting disruptions versus 29 percent in early 2021 and 21 percent in the first survey in 2020.
Elective surgeries such as hip and knee replacements are disrupted in 59 percent of countries, and gaps in rehabilitative and palliative care have been reported in about half.
The timing of the survey coincided with a spike in COVID-19 cases in many countries in late 2021 due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which put additional pressure on hospitals.
The WHO statement attributed the scale of the disruptions to “problems in pre-existing health systems” as well as low demand for care, without going into details.
MI