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The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on public health is hard to understate.\u00a0 Globally, millions of deaths have been directly attributed to the virus.\u00a0 In addition, the health implications of Long Covid, experienced by a significant proportion of the one hundred and eighty million who have tested positive for a Covid infection, remain to be fully understood.<\/p>\n
But what of those with other illnesses impacted by the Covid pandemic?\u00a0 How have patients with non-Covid conditions been affected by the global health crisis? Sygnature\u2019s Dr Allan Jordan shares his thoughts.<\/p>\n
The impact on non-Covid patients<\/strong><\/p>\n The most immediate impact for many patients has been the limited access to primary care \u2013 with visits to GPs, physiotherapists, dentists and the like all suspended or significantly reduced, those requiring day-to-day care have seen their access to healthcare severely restricted.\u00a0 For example, almost half of all patients with potential early cancer symptoms over the past year did not get their symptoms checked out by their GP. Alongside delayed treatments and missed appointments for diagnostic tests and follow-ups, these delays have led to later diagnoses, when the disease is much harder to treat. Estimates vary, but there are fears that these later diagnoses may lead to over thirty-five thousand additional cancer deaths over the coming year.\u00a0 And though figures are harder to track down, the situation is anticipated to be similar for a multitude of other conditions.\u00a0 As an indicator of this impact, the UK Office for National Statistics reported that non-Covid-related deaths were a worrying 15% above average through the first few months of the pandemic, with sustained above-average mortality for patients with diabetes, hypertension, and heart-related conditions.\u00a0 And a further three hundred thousand patients now face wait times for surgery of over a year \u2013 a one-hundred-fold increase<\/p>\n The wider impact \u2013 clinical trials and medicines discovery<\/strong><\/p>\n But these healthcare limitations are likely to have deeper and prolonged implications for patients, beyond the immediate backlog of medical concerns.\u00a0 The longer-term access to new medicines has been severely hampered by the necessity to divert all our medical resources to mitigating the pandemic.\u00a0 Clinical trials, pivotal to the delivery of these improved therapies, have been equally impacted over the last year.\u00a0 Recent retrospective studies suggest that the pandemic has largely halted the testing of new medicines for all therapeutic areas.\u00a0 In the UK alone, at the height of the first wave of Covid cases, almost all clinical trials were halted to new patient enrolment and globally, patient numbers on clinical trials fell by around two-thirds to three quarters.\u00a0 Supply chains of new medicinal products faced significant disruption, further delaying the progression of these therapies toward clinical approval.\u00a0 And as trials themselves begin to open up, travel restrictions remain, leading to notable reductions in the rates, and physical numbers, of patient enrolment.<\/p>\n The longer-term impact \u2013 better, and faster delivery of new medicines?<\/strong><\/p>\n Whilst the healthcare situation post-Covid looks bleak at the moment, there is some hope for making up this lost ground.\u00a0 Despite almost overwhelming challenges, over four thousand trials of Covid-19 related vaccines or drugs are now underway or have successfully completed. Trials have become decentralised from major clinical centres toward at-home delivery of medicines and routine telemedicine appointments for patient assessment and follow-up, increasing trial efficiency and patient convenience.\u00a0 Pre-competitive collaboration and effective co-operation across multitudes of stakeholders in research and clinical development have enabled both the progression of trials, and patient recruitment, at unprecedented rates.\u00a0 In addition, the streamlining of regulatory processes has allowed the approval of novel agents and vaccines on timeframes previously deemed impossible.<\/p>\n So, whilst the pandemic has left deep scars across our healthcare systems and our populations, it has perhaps also opened up novel opportunities to redress the balance, to force us to re-consider alternate ways to conduct our research toward delivering new medicines, and to promote new conversations around the delivery of our clinical trials.\u00a0 Perhaps the legacy of Covid-19 might not be an entirely negative one for the health of our nations?<\/p>\n