Assessing health systems’ capacity to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic: preliminary evidence from MENA countries

Mohammad Abu-Zaineh ()
Additional contact information
Mohammad Abu-Zaineh: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: With the spread of COVID-19 to the Middle-East and North African (MENA) region, many health experts share concerns about the capacity of these countries' health systems to halt such a pandemic. While a variety of factors may affect the spread of any infectious disease, health systems remain ultimately responsible for early detection, prevention and treatment. We assess and compare the readiness and capacity of the health systems in a set of MENA countries to respond to the current pandemic, using two mashup indices previously proposed to measure countries' detection capacity, risk of, and vulnerability to infectious diseases. As of May 1st 2020, the MENA region countries had a total of 213 045 confirmed cases of COVID-19, while the total number of deaths stood at 4 907. Although most of the confirmed cases (69%) and deaths (84%) are concentrated in Turkey and Iran, COVID-19 fatality rates remain relatively low in these two countries (2.6% and 6.4%, respectively) as compared to other countries in the region (Algeria: 11.2% and Egypt 7.1%). Reported figures from developed countries suggest that the fatality of COVID-19 depends, inter alia, on the demographic structure of the population, with more than 80% of fatalities concentrated amongst the elderly. Although disaggregate data by age is not readily available in the MENA countries, the high fatality rates observed are in line with global trends: with the exception of Israel and Turkey, COVID-19 fatalities appear to be higher in countries with a higher share of elderly people (Figure 1). However, other factors pertaining to health systems' capacity may explain the discrepancies observed between countries.

Keywords: Readiness and capacity of the health systems; COVID-19 pandemic; MENA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-03-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in 2020

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05717802

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().