Conflicts, COVID-19, and Climate Change: Challenges to Public Health in the Wake of Humanitarian Crises

Abstract

Currently, humanity is facing a serious crisis. The worldwide economic contraction, acute fall in financial asset values, collapse in imports and exports, contractions of industrial output, increase in inflation, shrink in wages, rise in unemployed people, wreckage of social security caused by numerous natural catastrophes, human displacement due to epidemics, and ongoing rivalries tear down not only the economic sector but likewise the health sector. The ripple effects of war, pandemics and natural catastrophes began at a time when 1 in 16 people worldwide was just pushed into extreme poverty due to healthcare costs, 1 in 8 had already been denied access to basic medical care, and 1 in 4 lacked access to basic medications. And now, deaths due to climate shock are 30 times higher than they were 20 years ago, and hunger is killing a life every 4 seconds.