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Thursday March 28, 2024

Profits and pandemics

By Khalid Bhatti
March 21, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic that originated from China in December 2019 has now spread to nearly 160 countries. What was seen as a China-specific public health crisis two months ago has now turned into an international health crisis.

The global death toll is rising and so the intensity of the crisis. The outbreak of Covid-19 nearly two and half months ago needed a global response from the US and big European powers. But it was not there.

We must remember that an isolationist and nationalist approach and strategy during a crisis period always helped extremist nationalist forces. It is important to remember the outcome of the isolationist policies to protect the national economies after the Great Depression of 1927-29. We saw the rise of fascism and Hitler. The nation-state was strengthened and national economies protected.

If the world powers fail to protect and help the poorer and weaker economies against the Covid-19 pandemic, they may develop nationalist feelings. The future of the European Union is dependant on the response of the EU institutions. If the EU left Italy, Spain, France and other countries to fight this epidemic alone then anti-EU sentiments would inevitably rise.

The affected countries have been left to deal with this health crisis alone. No help was extended to countries which faced financial difficulties even before the outbreak of Covid-19. Italy, Spain and Iran were already under financial constraints because of an economic crisis. In Italy, the government showed reluctance to mobilise resources in the beginning to contain the outbreak of epidemic. This reluctance cost it heavily in both human and economic losses.

China and South Korea have successfully contained and controlled the outbreak of Covid-19 through aggressive, efficient and well-planned measures executed by the governments. Both countries mobilised the much-needed financial resources to implement the containment strategy.

China was the epicentre of this pandemic but has overcome this healthcare crisis and now its economic and social life have started to return to normal. Only 10 to 11 patients are coming to the hospitals now. China has closed the special coronavirus hospitals in Wuhan.

The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of public health systems even in many European countries. It has shown us that public health systems in rich countries like France, Italy and Spain cannot cope with major epidemics like Covid-19. There is a shortage of staff, resources and equipment.

The neo-liberal onslaught and continued cuts over three decades on public health services have severely impacted the capacity and preparedness to deal with any major epidemic. Budget cuts over the years have devastated public health systems.

The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a new debate on public health services and the role of states to lead the fight against this epidemic. The debate is around whether we need a profit-driven private sector dominated health system to deal with a health crisis like Covid-19 or a state-dominated well-equipped and efficient public health system.

This debate is centred on two points. One, whether health is a basic human right and responsibility of the state or not. Second, whether public health comes first or profits for private-sector health providers. This debate is important because the neoliberal economic model has made health a commodity to be used for profits.

The role of the state and public-sector health services was reduced and the share and involvement of the private sector increased in the last three decades. But the different responses from different countries to contain and control Covid-19 show us that the role of the state and public health services are decisive and dominating. Public health services aimed at making profits cannot deliver in a public health crisis situation where human lives become more important than earning profits.

One big lesson that we can learn from the current health crisis is that we still need public-funded efficient, well integrated, democratically run public health systems and services to deal with pandemics and emergency health crisis situations. Well equipped-adequate and efficient public health services and systems cannot be built during the crisis but long before it.

Two leading public health experts Wim De Ceukelaire and Chiara Bodini have written the following on the Chinese response to Covid-19 in comparison to the European one.

“The report of the WHO-China joint mission on COVID-19 (https://www.who.int/docs/defaultsource/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf) offers essential insights in containment strategies, explains why health systems in many parts of the world are much less capable of implementing them and shows the way towards more resilient health systems.

“The report concludes that China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history. And it did this with success. Cases have decreased considerably and daily life is slowly resuming in areas that have been under huge stress in the past few weeks.

“As there is neither vaccine nor specific treatment, the containment of the outbreak is based on a number of measures including identifying people who are sick, bringing them to care, following up on contacts, preparing hospitals and clinics to manage a surge in patients, and training health workers.

“[The]WHO-China joint mission report’s conclusion is remarkable as it says that this has only been possible “due to the deep commitment of the Chinese people to collective action in the face of this common threat.”

Similar conclusions can be drawn from experiences in other Asian territories. What we can learn from the global corona pandemic is that strong public health systems have the resilience to address massive health threats with the collective responses they require. Privatization of health services and individualization of risks might further undermine our ability to address this and future global pandemics.

The writer is a freelance journalist.