COVID-19, tuberculosis, and poverty: preventing a perfect storm

Saunders, Matthew J.; Evans, Carlton A.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be the defining global health crisis of our generation. As the United Nations Development Programme highlighted in their recent call to action, the impact of this pandemic will extend beyond the immediate medical consequences to have far-reaching and long-lasting social and economic impacts, threatening to disproportionately affect poorer people in poorer countries [1]. Income losses are anticipated to exceed $220 billion in developing countries, where many people live day-to-day without access to social protection, and food security is precarious [1]. Strikingly, a recent United Nations study suggests that the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could increase the number of people living in poverty by as much as half a billion, with the majority of these newly poor people living in Africa, South-East Asia, and Central and South America [2].