After a coup in February, testing, contact-tracing and treatment of covid ground to a halt. Public hospitals emptied of medical workers
Covid is ravaging Myanmar. Daily cases, taken as an average over seven days, have hovered around 5,000 since mid-July, but limited testing means that this is probably an underestimate . The share of tests that return positive results has exceeded 35% since mid-July, which suggests widespread, uncontrolled transmission. Only Iran and Mexico have higher positivity rates.
In any case, lockdowns are impossible to enforce when people believe their lives are in danger. Violence unleashed by the coup has spurred many Burmese to take flight. Some 230,000 people fled their homes between February and June, bringing the total number of displaced people in Myanmar to 680,000. The camps where some have found refuge often have limited health care. The jungles where others flee have none.
But the struggle to find medical assistance has become a national problem, shared by refugees and city folk alike. Myanmar had few doctors to begin with. In 2018 there were just 0.7 for every 1,000 people—fewer even than in India, which had 0.9. Their number has been depleted by the junta. The regime has arrested top health officials, including the former head of the national vaccination programme. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of health workers have gone underground.
Many people who are ill are treating themselves at home. They are keeping doctors like Moe Oo busy. Through his telemedicine service, which he offers free of charge, he is teaching patients how to check their vital signs and oxygen levels, and inject antibiotics or insulin. Many find it tricky to perform such tasks, he says. But they are the lucky ones. Drugs and other medical supplies are in short supply.
Myanmar is counting around 360 deaths from covid each day. This is one of the world’s highest fatality rates, relative to population. Yet it is probably an undercount, something which the junta has implicitly acknowledged: it is building ten crematoriums in Yangon, which will be capable of dispatching more than 3,000 bodies a day.
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