COVID-19 and mental health of older Africans: an urgency for public health policy and response strategy.
COVID-19 and mental health of older Africans: an urgency for public health policy and response strategy.
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DOI：
10.1017/s1041610220003312
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发表时间：
2020-10
影响因子：
7
通讯作者：
Gyasi RM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gyasi RM
2019年新型冠状病毒病（COVID-19）已成为全球公共卫生挑战，并继续深刻地淹没政府、经济、卫生系统和社会生活。尽管COVID-19已席卷全球所有地区及地区的任何年龄组别的人士，但影响的程度仍几乎不确定。然而，我们所知道的是，60岁或60岁以上的人高度暴露于大流行病，并在死亡人数中占不成比例的比例（Mahase，2020年; Verity等人，2020年;世卫组织，2020年a），在老年人口中产生强烈的恐惧和“道德恐慌”。年龄因素与生命过程和年龄相关的免疫功能下降以及患有严重既存慢性合并症（如心血管疾病（CVD）和肺部疾病）的可能性有关（Gyasi和安德森，2020; Nikolich-Zugich等人，2020年），不幸的是在老年人中占主导地位（Gyasi和菲利普斯，2020年）。这一发展对COVID-19政策和公共卫生应对措施产生了严重影响。然而，与2014-2016年西非埃博拉疫情一样，撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）控制COVID-19传染和临床应对的国家战略尚未针对高危老年人群的特定护理需求。非洲目前的感染趋势需要良好的政策和合理的公共卫生规划。虽然全球约70%的老年人居住在低收入和中等收入国家（LMIC），但这些国家的卫生系统能力薄弱，也缺乏有方法的流行病学监测系统来控制感染的潜在激增和伴随的衰弱影响（吉尔伯特等人，2020年）。许多撒哈拉以南非洲国家的公共卫生基础设施、人员和其他资源有限，如重症监护病房病床、呼吸机、隔离中心和个人防护设备（PPE），无法抗击COVID-19（WHO，2020 B）。随着病毒的传播和重症老年患者数量的增加，卫生系统的潜在压力迫在眉睫（Grasselli et al.，2020年）。很显然，
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a global public health challenge and profoundly continues to inundate governments, economies, health systems, and social lives. Although COVID-19 has swept persons of any age cohort in all regions and territories globally, the extent of the reverberations remains almost uncertain. What we know, however, is that persons aged 60years or older are highly exposed to the pandemic and constitute a disproportionate chunk of the fatalities (Mahase, 2020; Verity et al., 2020; WHO, 2020 a), engendering ardent fear and “moral panic” among older populations. The age factor has been linked to the life course and age-related declines in immune functioning and the likelihood of having severe preexisting chronic comorbidities, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and pulmonary conditions (Gyasi and Anderson, 2020; Nikolich-Zugich et al., 2020), which unfortunately predominate in older age (Gyasi and Phillips, 2020). This development has serious implications for the COVID-19 policy and public health response. However, like the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the respective national strategies to control the COVID-19 contagion and clinical response in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have not been tailored to the specific care needs of the highly at-risk older populations. The current trend of the infection in Africa warrants good policy and sensible public health planning.While approximately 70% of global older people reside in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), health systems in these settings have weak capacity and also lack methodic epidemiological surveillance systems to contain the potential surge of the infection and the concomitant debilitating impacts (Gilbert et al., 2020). Many SSA countries have limited public health infrastructure, personnel, and other resources such as intensive care unit beds, ventilators, isolation centers, and personal protective equipment (PPEs) to fight COVID-19 (WHO, 2020 b). Looming is the potential straining of the health systems with the spread of the virus and the growing number of critically ill older patients (Grasselli et al., 2020). Obviously,