Comparative impact of Covid-19 and common diseases on poverty in Cameroon and sustainable response strategies

Abstract

In the context of a developing country like Cameroon characterized by the scarcity of financial resources and the appearance of Covid-19, this article  shows that this pandemic was not more important than the pre-existing health problems to the point of giving it more importance in funding compared  to strengthening the health system. The theoretical elasticity model of the poverty rate to growth is used to estimate the impact of Covid-19 and the  incidence of impoverishing health expenditure is used for the impact of common diseases. It is estimated through direct health payments that common  diseases push about 340,865 people into extreme poverty annually. The Covid-19, through the loss of growth generated between 4.8 and 6.6 points  according to the optimistic or pessimistic scenarios, would impoverish between 224,193 and 398,565 people: impact on the number of poor ranging from  0.7 to 1.2 times that of all common diseases, i.e., equivalent on average, but sensitive to the speed of spread of the virus and the duration of the  crisis while the impact of common diseases is structural and linked to the poorly performing health system. The solutions proposed are endogenous and  linked to the impact mechanisms.