The number of cases of Covid in Ukraine it was going down. But now there are fears that the epidemic could raise its head if the response to the virus is stopped. And the alarm for a possible health emergency, in the face of the siege of tanks, also extends to other diseases, from polio to cancer. The World Health Organization has in fact expressed “concern for the health of the Ukrainian people in the escalation of the crisis” and the attack by Russia: “The health system must continue to function to provide essential care for all health problems , from Covid-19 to cancer “. Because the virus hasn’t gone away.
Ukraine, between war and health crisis
According to reports from the “Our world in data” platform, over 27,000 cases of Covid were recorded in Ukraine on 24 February. The WHO Europe counter reports further data on the progress of the pandemic in the country: Ukraine in the last 7 days has had just under 150 thousand infections. The average incidence per 100,000 inhabitants was down by 29% in the last week; 1,558 deaths recorded in the last 7 days. And now there are fears of a resumption of the pandemic.
But the health problems are not limited to Covid. War will also make treating other diseases, such as diabetes or cancer, much more difficult. In addition, NBC News recalled, since last October Ukraine has been trying to bring a polio epidemic under control. There have been about twenty cases of children affected by the disease, although by 2020, 87% of the population had received the first dose of the polio vaccine. Dr Timothy Erickson, a doctor at Brigham and women’s hospital recalled that “with conflicts it is quite evident that polio cases are not only increasing, but are also re-emerging in countries where the disease was thought to have been eradicated.”
Overall, therefore, health experts are concerned about the disruption of care for people in Ukraine. “We’re talking about everything from insulin for diabetes to heart medications. But also about some of the most serious and costly diseases, from cancer treatments to dialysis, ”Paul Spiegel, director of the John Hopkins center for humanitarian health, told NBC news. And as for Covid directly, the concerns of most Ukrainians about the virus will inevitably take a back seat to the most urgent survival needs in these days of war.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine is resulting in mass migration westward. Many people are on the move, crowding the nerve centers of transport, trains, roads. In the New York Times, an expert from the Center for health security of the Bloomberg school of public health, Eric S. Toner, recalls that the crowding of people in buses, trains and cars, in hotels and refugee camps, risks “causing a ‘ reversal of progress “in the fight against Covid. Biden administration officials speculate that between 1 and 5 million people could seek safety in other parts of the country or in neighboring ones. And and it is possible that even in neighboring countries there may be an increase in infections. But the problems will be worse inside the country, where the health system will have to take care of Covid patients and victims of the war.
According to the data also available in “Our world in data”, about one third of the inhabitants of Ukraine are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. In the country’s army, however, vaccination coverage has reached 99.3%. Ukraine does not recognize the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, while Russia does not recognize Western-made vaccines administered in Ukraine. There is also the risk that the Russian invasion will create problems in the tracing capacity of the virus. “I suspect that we will stop receive a lot of data from Ukraine “, concluded the expert of the Center for health security, also because” hospitals and local health departments will not have this priority “.
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