Full Description
This collection draws upon a range of thematic and regional case studies and uses the right to health as a normative framework to explore the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa.
Drawing lessons from across the continent, the book discusses the challenges faced by African states seeking to ensure the availability, accessibility, and quality of health care in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the volume explores the impact of the pandemic on the right to health of vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as women, children, elderly persons with disabilities, refugees and asylum seekers, and people from disadvantaged communities. Due to the poor funding of the healthcare systems, access to health-related services was limited to these groups in many African countries, thereby leading to avoidable COVID-19-related deaths through shortages of vital supplies, including diagnostic tests, ventilators, and oxygen cylinders. Chapters in the volume also explore the contentious issues of vaccine mandates, equity, resource allocation, and the rights of healthcare providers during the pandemic.
This collection will be of interest to students of public health, human rights, and the social sciences, as well as to academics and policymakers with an interest in the nexus between the COVID-19 pandemic and public health policy in Africa.
Contents
Part I: Conceptual Issues 1. Introduction 2. Discriminatory practices against women in access to health care in Kenya in the context of COVID-19 pandemic 3. The indivisibility and interdependence of human rights in the context of COVID-19 Part II: The Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Health Goods and Services 4. The situation of COVID-19 vaccines inequity in developing countries 5. COVID-19 vaccine mandate and the right to health in Africa: Should Africa toe the path of the United States? 6. An intersectional perspective of inequalities in access to COVID-19 vaccines in Africa: The case of migrants 7. A human rights approach to budgetary allocation and the right to health: COVID-19 and health systems in Africa Part III: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Right to Health of Disadvantaged and Marginalised Groups 8. Tale of two pandemics; Interrogating the impact of COVID-19 on access to maternal health care rights for rural women in Kenya and Uganda 9. The impact of COVID 19 on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women in Eswatini 10. Protection of the right to health of minorities and vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic 11. The nexus between COVID-19 and sexual and reproductive health of adolescents: Bringing adolescents' 'home' 12. The impact of COVID-19 on health care providers in Africa 13. Impact of COVID-19 to enjoyment of rights to abortion care and the role of transparency 14. The role of regional human rights bodies and national courts in addressing human rights in the context of COVID-19 pandemic
