ArticleDeveloping world bioethics2021
Allocation of scarce resources in Africa during COVID-19: Utility and justice for the bottom of the pyramid?
Article in Developing world bioethics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Primary Stroke Screening and Hydroxyurea Treatment for Sickle Cell Anemia in Pediatric Healthcare Settings in East and Central Africa: A Narrative Review of Capacity Gaps and Opportunities.Public health reviews · 2025Review
- 'The Norm Is to Not Openly Collaborate': Using the Lens of Co-Production to Evaluate the Development of a COVID-19 ICU Triage Policy.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2024Article
- aPDI meets PPE: photochemical decontamination in healthcare using methylene blue-where are we now, where will we go?Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology · 2024Article
- Assessment of hospitalisation costs and their determinants among Covid-19 patients in South Central Ethiopia.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- How COVID-19 pandemic has shaped buyer-supplier relationships in engineering companies with ethical perception considerations: A multi-methodological study.Journal of business research · 2023Article
- The evolution of the human healthcare system and implications for understanding our responses to COVID-19.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2022Review
- Artificial intelligence-based prediction for cancer-related outcomes in Africa: Status and potential refinements.Journal of global health · 2022Article
- COVID-19 underscores the important role of Clinical Ethics Committees in Africa.BMC medical ethics · 2021Article
- Which Group Should be Vaccinated First?: A Systematic Review.Infection & chemotherapy · 2021Article
- Mozambican Adolescents and Youths during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Knowledge and Awareness Gaps in the Provinces of Sofala and Tete.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Allocation of scarce resources in Africa during COVID-19: Utility and justice for the bottom of the pyramid?Developing world bioethics · 2021Article
- Ethics, pandemic and environment; looking at the future of low middle income countries.International journal for equity in health · 2020Review
- Expected Impacts of COVID-19: Considering Resource-Limited Countries and Vulnerable Population.Frontiers in public healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised important universal public health challenges. Conceiving ethical responses to these challenges is a public health imperative but must take context into account. This is particularly important in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In this paper, we examine how some of the ethical recommendations offered so far in high-income countries might appear from a SSA perspective. We also reflect on some of the key ethical challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic in low-income countries suffering from chronic shortages in health care resources, and chronic high morbidity and mortality from non-COVID-19 causes. A parallel is drawn between the distribution of severity of COVID-19 disease and the classic "Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid" model that is relevant in SSA. Focusing allocation of resources during COVID-19 on the 'thick' part of the pyramid in Low-to-Middle Income Countries (LMICs) could be ethically justified on utilitarian and social justice grounds, since it prioritizes a large number of persons who have been economically and socially marginalized. During the pandemic, importing allocation frameworks focused on the apex of the pyramid from the global north may therefore not always be appropriate. In a post-COVID-19 world, we need to think strategically about how health care systems can be financed and structured to ensure broad access to adequate health care for all who need it. The root problems underlying health inequity, exposed by COVID-19, must be addressed, not just to prepare for the next pandemic, but to care for people in resource poor settings in non-pandemic times.
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