Public Healthcare Systems Report

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Abstract
Better preparedness for fighting influenza can significantly help to mitigate its impact. Even the
low and middle-income countries have started to develop and implement national preparedness
and plans for flu. The level of preparation varies among countries by its ability to fund the
groups fighting influenza. These countries face unique and challenging problems and challenges
when managing disease. Low and middle developed countries face more problems when
addressing this issue and preparing for the same. Different pharmaceutical interventions, such as
antiviral and vaccines, are not much available in middle-income countries. Middle developed
countries cannot adequately deal with the widespread influenza pandemic due to reduced
hospital infrastructure and weak public health systems. International organizations such as World
Health Organizations (WHO) should seek to improve the preparedness to all low and middle-
income countries to curve the spread of influenza. Reform policy is employed to deal with the
challenges of managing the disease. The state of the health systems influences how the middle-
income countries prepare for the influenza pandemic. Countries that have much invested in
fighting the epidemic have a significant improvement in health system surveillance, the capacity
of their laboratory, monitoring, and proper communication. Influenza is a tropical public issue
that needs to be handled with great care. There are potential public health solutions and
interventions that can be applied to manage and mitigate the effects of influenza, such as the use
of pharmaceutical and Non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Keywords: Middle and low-income countries, disease, vaccine, mitigation, and global strategies.

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Topic: Infectious disease: Discuss public health challenges to managing influenza in tropical
low- or middle income country(s)
Introduction
Influenza is a severe acute contagious disease that affects the lungs and upper airways
and is caused by the virus, which spreads rapidly around the whole world in seasonal epidemics
(Petrova, and Russell, 2018). Infectious diseases are disorders that are caused by organisms like
viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites. Influenza is a virus that is a common cause of acute
respiratory infection among people and young children. Low or middle-income countries face
challenges when managing influenza. There is a need to explore public health solutions. The
objective of this study is to discuss the influenza pandemic, the state of health systems in middle
or low-income countries, challenges, and constraints that they face when addressing this issue.
The discussion focused on countries like middle or low developed countries like; Cambodia,
Indonesia, Thailand, and Libya. Health systems are greatly influenced by health care financing
and health care financing patterns. Central developed counties need to develop national
governance on pandemic preparedness, including the national pandemic influenza plans.
Most infectious diseases are spread very fast over a short period, from person to person.
A virus spreads infectious diseases like influenza. The tropical public health deals with this kind
of disease that are prevalent and unique to tropical and subtropical regions. Global courses of
action are introduced to state the plan that shows how different strategies and management
actions can be employed to achieve the goals to fight influenza and related pandemics. Reform
policy is employed to deal with the challenges for managing influenza (Clarke and Margetts,
2014). Reform policy states the changes that need to be made, such as policies, laws, and
regulations that can be used to address a problem and achieve the objective of providing a

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solution. The research conducted showed that in 20 million influenza cases, 1 million was
associated with children under the age of 5 years globally (Preaud et al., 2014).
Influenza is a tropical public issue that needs to have great plans for preparedness to deal
with it. The preferred course of action to deal with influenza is preparedness to mitigate the
pandemic. Potential public health solutions and mediations can be used to handle and mitigate
the effects of influenza-like using pharmaceutical and Non-pharmaceutical interventions. Better
preparedness for fighting influenza can greatly help to mitigate its impact and can be a better
solution (Madhav et al., 2017). Influenza causes outbreaks among people in the world and spread
very fast. Even the low and middle-income countries like Cambodia and Indonesia have started
to develop and implement national preparedness and plans to deal with influenza. International
organizations urge countries to develop and implement global strategies that can be effective in
mitigating the effects of the pandemic.
Middle-income countries face the challenge of limited finance and resources to
strengthen their plans to handle preparedness. The level of preparedness varies among countries
by its ability to fund the groups fighting influenza. These countries face unique and difficult
problems and challenges when managing influenza of which makes this situation very tough to
handle. Countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Libya face more problems when
addressing this issue and preparing for the same. These challenges need to be addressed well
when planning for better strategies. Strategies such as effective mitigation of the impact can be
used to handle influenza in middle or low-income countries (Gemmetto, Barrat, and Cattuto,
2014).
Public health faces great challenges when managing influenza in tropical Low or middle-
income countries. Most countries in Africa and other continents may have problems to deal with

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infectious diseases like influenza. Even the increased availability of pharmaceutical interventions
alone cannot fully solve all the problems in middle developed countries. Other related issues, like
the provision of pharmaceutical commodities, need to be provided. These include needles and
syringes for administering vaccines should be made available to all countries. Low-income
countries cannot have the ability for mass testing when faced with influenza pandemics like the
current situation of COVID-19 (Lyons-Weiler, 2018).
Low or middle developed countries such as Libya, Thailand, and Cambodia face the
challenges of having adequate infrastructure and technical expertise. It is not only the case in
influenza but also dealing with other infectious diseases. These countries are urged to improved
capacities for responding to these pandemics and good surveillance. An influenza pandemic can
be handled well if the countries have core capacities, which are strong and improved
preparedness. Strengthening global strategic collaboration can be used to prepare all countries to
deal with any influenza spread. Middle-income countries have limited stockpiles and other
resources that can limit them from dealing with influenza (Weiss, Leuzinger, Zurbrügg, and
Eggen, 2016). At times people may cross borders to other countries to seek better medical care.
An influenza pandemic is a global issue, and preparedness should be addressed in all countries.
When influenza cases arise, such as SARS or MARS, most countries are affected in the
whole world. The impact varies with how countries can handle and mitigate the pandemic. From
1918 to 1920, the deaths from different countries during the Spanish flu pandemic shown that
European and North American continents had lower mortality rates than Africa, Asia, and South
America (Karlsson, Nilsson, and Pichler, 2014). The global impact of Spanish flu shown that
there was a great difference in mortality rates in middle or low-income countries. It was not well
revealed why this pandemic affected the most developed countries than the lower developed

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countries. Lack of access to good medical care, poor public health infrastructures, higher
population, nutritional status, and prevailing medical conditions affected the mortality from this
pandemic.
The prevalence of influenza is affected by prevailing conditions such as HIV/AIDS,
which weakens the immunity and makes people much exposed to die from the infection. HIV
causes severe infections to the affected and may further raise the death rates in countries with
high HIV cases. On the other hand, different pharmaceutical intervention strategies such as
antiviral and vaccines are not much available in middle-income countries. Middle developed
countries cannot fully deal with the widespread influenza pandemic due to poor hospital
infrastructure and poor public health systems. Existing literature shows that the death rate
associated with future influenza pandemics may be much high in developing countries than in
the middle-income countries (De Francisco, Donadel, Jit, and Hutubessy, 2015). Currently, this
has been proved to be true by the fact that the current pandemic that is affecting the whole world
called COVID-19 is many witnesses in developed countries like the USA, Italy, Spain, UK,
Spain, and Germany. The mortality rate is also lower in developed countries.
There are potential global public health solutions, strategies, and interventions that can
the applied to handle and mitigate the effects of influenza, such as the use of pharmaceutical
interventions like antivirus and vaccines and Non-pharmaceutical interventions like isolation
self-quarantine, social distancing, and good nutrition hygiene. Influenza is a tropical public issue
that needs to be handled with great care. However, in middle-income countries, they cannot be
able to develop vaccines to handle any influenza pandemic. A report from WHO shows that the
world can only produce 300 million doses of vaccines per year to treat influenza pandemics.

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Australian has a health management plan that can be used to provide evidence of the
preparedness that can be used to deal with influenza. Middle-income countries can follow these
strategies to deal with this pandemic and minimize its impact on their people and health systems.
These policies can help them include developing new clinical evidence. It is made possible by
providing good guidance and a framework for ensuring that they are prepared to deal with
influenza. Treatment strategies can also be improved by building more hospitals and laboratories
to deal with influenza. A domestic course of an option can be adopted from Australia's strategic
approach in response to influenza. These strategies can be adopted globally and help greatly to
mitigate the pandemic. The following are the emergency management cycle that can be used to
implement a good plan; influenza prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.
Another free solution to handle influenza is through the use of antiviral agents (Liu,
Zhou, and Yang, 2016). They are much effective when they are used at the early stages of a
pandemic, and when a shortage of vaccines is realized. A great challenge that is faced by
Thailand limited access to antiviral and vaccines due to the high cost associated with
procurement. Better solutions need to address the need for global strategies of increasing the
availability of antivirus and vaccines to all countries to improve pharmaceutical interventions.
Therefore, International organizations like World Health Organizations (WHO) should seek to
improve the preparedness to all low and middle-income countries to curve the spread of
influenza.
Conclusion
The state of the health systems influences how the middle-income countries prepare for
the influenza pandemic. Countries that have greatly invested in fighting the pandemic have a
great improvement in health system surveillance, the capacity of their laboratory, monitoring,

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and proper communication. Suggestions for better solutions include proper evaluations of
existing cases, contact tracing of the people who have been in contact with the sick people, and
funding hospitals and laboratories fighting influenza. Reform policy is employed to deal with the
challenges of managing influenza. Therefore, Middle or low developed countries need to develop
national governance on pandemic preparedness, including the national pandemic influenza plans.

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References
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