Abstract:Telemedicine is the use of technology to achieve remote care. This review looks at the utility of telemedicine during the pandemic, period March 2020 to February 2021. Eleven articles met inclusion criteria. There was moderate use of telemedicine in sub‐Sahara Africa during the pandemic, however, there were also some limitations. Benefits of telemedicine include continuing medical service provision, connecting relatives with loved ones in quarantine, education, and awareness of mental health issues, and toxico… Show more
“…The pandemic has enhanced the use of telemedicine worldwide, as a useful strategy to continue HIV retention-in-care reducing exposure to CO-VID-19 [17]. However, the utilization of telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa is greatly affected by insufficient technological infrastructure, limited network coverage and lack of internet connectivity, especially in rural communities [26]. Several gaps in the interplay between COVID-19 and HIV deserve to be addressed urgently.…”
Section: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (Hiv)mentioning
The global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disproportionately impacted global human health, economy, and security. Because of weaker health-care systems, existing comorbidities burden (HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and non-communicable conditions), and poor socioeconomic determinants, initial predictive models had forecast a disastrous impact of COVID-19 in Africa in terms of transmission, severity, and deaths. Nonetheless, current epidemiological data seem not to have matched expectations, showing lower SARS-CoV-2 infection and fatality rates compared to Europe, the Americas and Asia. However, only few studies were conducted in low-and middle-income African settings where high poverty and limited access to health services worsen underlying health conditions, including endemic chronic infectious diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. Furthermore, limited, and heterogeneous research was conducted to evaluate the indirect impact of the pandemic on general health services and on major dis-SUMMARY eases across African countries. International mitigation measures, such as resource reallocation, lockdowns, social restrictions, and fear from the population have had multi-sectoral impacts on various aspects of everyday life, that shaped the general health response. Despite the vast heterogeneity of data across African countries, available evidence suggests that the COV-ID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the control and prevention programs, the diagnosis capacity and the adherence to treatment of major infectious diseases (HIV, TB, and Malaria) -including neglected diseasesand non-communicable diseases. Future research and efforts are essential to deeply assess the medium-and long-term impact of the pandemic, and to implement tailored interventions to mitigate the standstill on decades of improvement on public health programs.
“…The pandemic has enhanced the use of telemedicine worldwide, as a useful strategy to continue HIV retention-in-care reducing exposure to CO-VID-19 [17]. However, the utilization of telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa is greatly affected by insufficient technological infrastructure, limited network coverage and lack of internet connectivity, especially in rural communities [26]. Several gaps in the interplay between COVID-19 and HIV deserve to be addressed urgently.…”
Section: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (Hiv)mentioning
The global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disproportionately impacted global human health, economy, and security. Because of weaker health-care systems, existing comorbidities burden (HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and non-communicable conditions), and poor socioeconomic determinants, initial predictive models had forecast a disastrous impact of COVID-19 in Africa in terms of transmission, severity, and deaths. Nonetheless, current epidemiological data seem not to have matched expectations, showing lower SARS-CoV-2 infection and fatality rates compared to Europe, the Americas and Asia. However, only few studies were conducted in low-and middle-income African settings where high poverty and limited access to health services worsen underlying health conditions, including endemic chronic infectious diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. Furthermore, limited, and heterogeneous research was conducted to evaluate the indirect impact of the pandemic on general health services and on major dis-SUMMARY eases across African countries. International mitigation measures, such as resource reallocation, lockdowns, social restrictions, and fear from the population have had multi-sectoral impacts on various aspects of everyday life, that shaped the general health response. Despite the vast heterogeneity of data across African countries, available evidence suggests that the COV-ID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the control and prevention programs, the diagnosis capacity and the adherence to treatment of major infectious diseases (HIV, TB, and Malaria) -including neglected diseasesand non-communicable diseases. Future research and efforts are essential to deeply assess the medium-and long-term impact of the pandemic, and to implement tailored interventions to mitigate the standstill on decades of improvement on public health programs.
“… [ 51 ] Correspondence Africa Telerheumatology Intermittent internet connection, digital divide and shortage of computing devices. [ 52 ] Review Africa Provision of universal virtual healthcare Lack of supporting telemedicine framework and policies, digital barriers, and patient and healthcare personnel biases. Fig.…”
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the attention has now shifted towards universal vaccination to gracefully lift strict COVID-19 restrictions previously imposed to contain the spread of the disease. Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing an exponential increase of infections and deaths coupled with vaccines shortages, personal protective equipment, weak health systems and COVID-19 emerging variants. Some developed countries integrated telemedicine to reduce the impacts of the shortage of healthcare professionals and potentially reduce the risk of exposure, ensuring easy delivery of quality health services while limiting regular physical contact and direct hospitalization. However, the adoption of telemedicine and telehealth is still nascent in many sub-Saharan Africa countries. Therefore, this study reflects on progress made towards the use of telemedicine, virtual health care services, challenges encountered, and proffers ways to address them. We conducted a systematic literature review to synthesise literature on telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa. The study revealed that telemedicine provides unprecedented benefits such as improving efficiency, effective utilization of healthcare resources, forward triaging, prevention of medical personnel infection, aiding medical students' clinical observation and participation, and assurance of social support for patients. However, the absence of policy on virtual care and political will, cost of sustenance of virtual health care services, inadequate funding, technological and infrastructural barriers, patient and healthcare personnel bias on virtual care and cultural barriers are identified as limiting factors to the adoption of virtual health care in many African health systems. To alleviate some of these barriers, we recommend the development of robust policies and frameworks for virtual health care, the inclusion of virtual care in the medical school curriculum, supporting virtual care research and development, increasing health funding, removing monopolisation of telecommunication services, developing of virtual health solutions that address eccentricities of African health systems.
“…We noticed that some low-income countries such as those in Africa lagged behind in using remote communication technologies which might be related to the many barriers such as availability, financial, and organizational barriers 16 . However, the use of remote communication technologies in Africa has increased compared to early in the COVID-19 pandemic 17 . The use of telemedicine in providing care to kidney disease patients had been implemented in some countries even before the COVID-19 pandemic 18 , 19 , and has increased markedly during the pandemic 3,20 .…”
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