Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Department of Anthropology, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2022 Feb;16(1):316-320. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2020.329. Epub 2020 Sep 10.
Since the coronavirus disease 2019, called COVID-19, has overwhelmed the high-income countries with ample resources and established health-care system, we argue that there are plausible concerns why it may devastate the low-income countries like Pakistan. Focusing on Pakistan, we highlight the underlying reasons, eg, demographic features, ineffective health-care system, economic and political inequalities, corruption, and socio-cultural characteristics, that create fertile grounds for COVID-19 to overwhelm low-income countries. This study presents Pakistan's brief profile to demonstrate these underlying structures that may make low-income countries like Pakistan more vulnerable in the face of an unceasing COVID-19 pandemic. The study concludes that the country may make appropriate and possibly effective short-term preparedness measures to halt or slow the transmission of the virus, and deal with its current implications as well as it may pay significant attention to long-term measures to deal effectively with COVID-19's longer-term effects. These measures will help them, including Pakistan, to deal appropriately with a similar future critical event.
自 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）以其充足的资源和完善的医疗保健系统席卷高收入国家以来，我们认为有合理的理由担心它可能会摧毁巴基斯坦等低收入国家。以巴基斯坦为例，我们强调了潜在的原因，例如人口特征、低效的医疗保健系统、经济和政治不平等、腐败以及社会文化特征，这些原因为 COVID-19 在低收入国家蔓延创造了有利条件。本研究介绍了巴基斯坦的简要概况，以展示这些潜在的结构，这些结构可能使巴基斯坦等低收入国家在面对持续不断的 COVID-19 大流行时更加脆弱。该研究得出的结论是，该国可能会采取适当和可能有效的短期准备措施来阻止或减缓病毒的传播，并应对当前的影响，以及可能会高度关注长期措施，以有效应对 COVID-19 的长期影响。这些措施将帮助包括巴基斯坦在内的国家，妥善应对类似的未来重大事件。
