Finding Money for Public Health, Green Economic Recovery & SDGs

A health worker in Kasubi Food Market, measuring the temperature of people accessing the market. After washing their hands with water and soap, everyone is screened to check the temperature, and an isolation tent is set aside to manage suspected coronavirus cases, Kasubi Food Market, Kampala City, Uganda. Covid-19 response. April 2020. Credit: WaterAid / James Kiyimba By John Garrett, Kathryn Tobin and Chilufya ChilesheLONDON, May 12 2020 (IPS) The coronavirus pandemic underscores the profound fragility and unsustainability of today’s world. It exposes the chronic underinvestment in human health and well-being and the consequences of a relentless exploitation of biodiversity and the natural environment. Despite the pledge by 193 governments in adopting the historic Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, COVID-19 and the accelerating climate crisis threaten to undermine the progress made and to increase global poverty levels for the first time in decades. Global leadership—governmental and corporate—has been found seriously wanting. At least half of the world’s population do not have access to essential health services. Three billion people lack basic handwashing facilities, over a billion people live in dense, slum conditions and are therefore unable to practise physical distancing, and 40% of health care facilities globally lack hand hygiene at points of care (WHO/UNICEF JMP 2019). The virus and resulting lockdowns threaten the livelihoods of 1.6 billion workers,...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Africa Development & Aid Featured Headlines Health Population Poverty & SDGs Sustainability TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news