A Review of COVID-19 Response Challenges in Ethiopia

Abdulnasir Abagero (), Luca Ragazzoni, Ives Hubloue, Francesco Barone-Adesi, Hamdi Lamine, Adamu Addissie, Francesco Della Corte and Martina Valente
Additional contact information
Abdulnasir Abagero: CRIMEDIM—Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
Luca Ragazzoni: CRIMEDIM—Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
Ives Hubloue: ReGEDiM—Research Group on Emergency Disaster Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1050 Brussels, Belgium
Francesco Barone-Adesi: CRIMEDIM—Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
Hamdi Lamine: CRIMEDIM—Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
Adamu Addissie: Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa 70710, Ethiopia
Francesco Della Corte: CRIMEDIM—Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
Martina Valente: CRIMEDIM—Center for Research and Training in Disaster Medicine, Humanitarian Aid and Global Health, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 17, 1-13

Abstract: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has positioned fragile healthcare systems in low-income countries under pressure, leading to critical gaps in service delivery. The pandemic response demands the healthcare system to be resilient and continue provision of healthcare services. This review is aimed at describing the healthcare response challenges during the pandemic in Ethiopia. Methodology: Eligible studies dealing with challenges of the healthcare system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia were included. The six World Health Organization (WHO) healthcare system building blocks were used to categorize healthcare challenges. PubMed ProQuest, databases were searched, and results were summarized using systematic review synthesis. Results: Financial constraints led to a shortage of mechanical ventilators. Furthermore, the pandemic hindered the capacity to avail full packages of personal protective equipment in health facilities and intensive care capacity. The pandemic also affected the delivery of maternal, child and new-born services, prevention, and treatment of childhood illness, including immunization services. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic posed various challenges to the performance of the healthcare system in Ethiopia. It is recommended that policy makers and stakeholders enhance pandemic preparedness and strengthen response capacity by considering the six WHO healthcare system building blocks.

Keywords: pandemic response; resilience; COVID-19; healthcare system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/17/11070/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/17/11070/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:17:p:11070-:d:906388

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().