MEXICO CITY -- As the coronavirus pandemic stalks the globe, some nations, particularly in the developing world, find themselves under extraordinary strain as they simultaneously contend with other outbreaks, chronic public health problems and challenges posed by government mismanagement, poverty and armed conflict.
The all-consuming demands of the coronavirus, officials fear, could divert government focus and open the door to a possible resurgence of other illnesses.
A dengue epidemic ravaged Honduras last year, sickening more than 100,000 people and leaving 180 dead. As this year began, officials braced for another surge in cases of the mosquito-borne disease and wondered how they would manage with their frail public health system and shortage of trained personnel.
"Horrible," said Dr. Dinorah Nolasco, a top health official in northern Honduras, a region that has been particularly hard-hit by both diseases. "These months have been tremendous."
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In Latin America, where the number of coronavirus cases has been rising sharply, governments are trying to contend with new dengue outbreaks while holding onto gains in the fight against other infectious diseases. But at least nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have paused some of their immunization activities, officials said, threatening efforts to control diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and measles.
Dengue is also bedeviling nations in Southeast Asia, like Indonesia, another country hard-hit by the coronavirus. And in Africa, health officials are concerned about recent outbreaks of yellow fever, cholera, measles and Ebola, among other diseases.
In one alarming measure of the extent of the coronavirus disruption to global health strategies, vaccination programs in at least 68 countries have been "substantially hindered," according to a statement last week by the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Gavi, a public-private partnership that helps provide vaccines to developing countries.
The suspensions could affect about 80 million children younger than 1 and risk a resurgence of diseases such as polio, measles, typhoid, yellow fever, meningitis, tetanus and cholera, the agencies said.
The causes for the disruptions include lockdowns that have impeded the movement of health care workers and patients, fear of coronavirus transmission in mass vaccination gatherings, inadequate vaccine supplies due to transportation delays and insufficient protective gear for health care workers, the groups said.
In some places, health care workers assigned to vaccination campaigns have been redeployed to respond to the coronavirus, officials said.
The pandemic, coming on top of other immense public health challenges, "has showed the vulnerabilities of many countries in different manners," said Richard Mihigo, coordinator in Africa for the World Health Organization's immunization and vaccines development program.
"Countries have been almost on their knees, paralyzed," he continued. "It becomes very clear that they need to have a much more resilient health system in place to control any outbreak or to prepare for any outbreak that may come."
The coronavirus took hold in Latin America well after it had started pummeling most of the rest of the world. During the first few months of the year, health officials had more immediate problems to contend with, including dengue.
In 2019, the disease, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, ravaged Latin America, which suffered its worst dengue epidemic on record with more than 3 million cases and more than 1,500 deaths.
A Section on 05/31/2020