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TL;DR
The analysis found that the pandemic caused severe, early disruptions to service utilization, with recovery that was generally slow and incomplete.
Frontiers in Public Health · 10 authors, 6 centres
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The analysis found that the pandemic caused severe, early disruptions to service utilization, with recovery that was generally slow and incomplete.
The study used routine health information system data from January 2017 to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on service reporting and utilization in Uganda and Bangladesh. Time series models were used to predict service levels based on pre-pandemic trends, and the difference between observed and predicted levels was used to estimate the pandemic's effect. The models closely replicated pre-COVID-19 trajectories. Results indicated that COVID-19 severely affected most health services, with the most severe impacts occurring in the first months of the pandemic. Recovery to expected levels was slow and incomplete for many services, notably overall outpatient attendance and childhood malaria and pneumonia visits. Effects on maternal health services like antenatal care and facility deliveries were more pronounced in Bangladesh than in Uganda. A key limitation is the use of aggregate-level data, which may not capture facility-level disruptions.