Abstract
The new coronavirus has spread almost everywhere on our planet. Governments have taken various measures to try and control the disease – many of us are in lockdown, and lots of schools and businesses are closed. Some people have lost their jobs. These (and other) measures have consequences for other diseases as well. We wanted to assess what impact the coronavirus epidemic would have on three other current epidemics: HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. These three diseases are a major threat, especially in poorer countries.
We created mathematical models to estimate how the measures against COVID-19 are impacting people with these other diseases. Unfortunately, we found that deaths could increase by 10% for HIV, 20% for TB and 36% for malaria.
Our results show that governments should continue with the most important actions that help prevent and treat these three diseases.