The coronavirus outbreak, reported first at the end of 2019, was declared a global pandemic in October 2020 by the World Health Organization. Countries tackled the outbreak in different ways, but some healthcare systems crumbled under the crisis, highlighting the immediate need for innovative strategies to strengthen public healthcare.
This urgent need led India to adopt proactive measures such as imposing complete mandatory lockdowns, and declaring masks and sanitisers to be essential commodities. The Indian Constitution treats health as an important aspect of human life. Article 21, which guarantees the fundamental right to life to all citizens may well include access to basic healthcare. However, the pandemic has made the government realize that a large percentage of the population has no access to such healthcare.
Please click here to read the full article by Rhea Sydney, published in IBLJ.
