The outbreak of pneumonia of an unknown ethology was reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China (1). Following this, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified as the causative virus for the pandemic in China and other parts of the world by the World Health Organization (WHO) (2).
Then the emergence of the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was announced by World Health Organization (WHO) as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on January 30, 2020 (2).
As of March 25, 2021, more than 235 countries/territories are affected with more than 120,383,289 cases and 2, 666, 91 deaths were recorded worldwide. In Africa, 57 countries/territories are affected with more than 4,124,997 COVID-19 cases and more than 109,586 deaths were reported across the continent. On March 13, COVID-19 positive case was first reported in Ethiopia. As of March 25, 2021, a total of 187,365 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,657 deaths were recorded in the country (3).
The supply and demand for health care services have been shown to affect access to these services in the past. Patients may be hesitant to seek treatment because they believe health facilities are infected, or they have doubts about the competence of health care providers to implement adequate infection prevention and control procedures. When health systems are overburdened by outbreaks, people may be unable to get the care they need, resulting in an increase in the number of deaths from COVID-19-related and non-COVID-19 causes. (4, 5, and 6).
Many countries are struggling to strike a balance between COVID 19-related initiatives and the necessity to continue providing other critical health services. Many routine and optional services have been halted, and new techniques are being developed in response to the changing pandemic situation. (7).
A country's ability to maintain the supply of basic health care is determined by a number of factors. These are baseline health system capacity, illness burden, and COVID-19 transmission locally. (8).
The Ethiopian essential health service package includes reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health services; major communicable diseases; non-communicable diseases; surgical care; and emergency and critical care (12).
The Ebola outbreak in 2014–2015 resulted in an 18% drop in average health-care utilization. The decline was even greater for maternity and child health services, such as facility-based deliveries, which fell by 28%. The number of mortality from measles, malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis has increased. Which was attributable to health system failures to provide those services (9, 10, and 11).
Studies done in 22 hospitals of France (a country that has been struck early and with a high intensity of the COVID-19 wave) showed 26% decline of all emergency department visits, including a decrease of 34% of strokes, 32% of transitory ischemic attacks, 64% of unstable angina, 42% of appendicitis and 36% of seizures (13, 14).
Global financing faculty predicted in Ethiopia that 1,229,200 children have the potential to leave without oral antibiotics for pneumonia, 3,164,600 children without DPT vaccinations, 238,000 women without access to facility-based deliveries, and fewer than 2,243,700 women receiving family planning services. As a result of compromise in all essential services, child mortality in Ethiopia could increase by 15 percent and maternal mortality by 8 percent over the next year (15).
A study done in Switzerland showed 43% decrease of elective visceral surgical procedures was observed after Covid-19 (295 vs. 165, p < 0.01), while the emergency operations (all specialties) decreased by 39% (1476 vs. 897, p < 0.01). Fifty-two and 38 major oncological surgeries were performed, respectively, representing a 27% decrease (p = 0.316). Outpatient consultations dropped by 59%, from 728 to 296 (p < 0.01) (16).