Inequities in the emergence, manifestations and consequences of COVID19
Abstract
The Inequality Virus is the name given to SARS-COV2 by an OXFAM publication, highlighting that during the pandemic, the ten richest men on the planet have earned 540 billion dollars, a figure that would serve to finance a universal vaccine for COVID19. This fact is an exemplary demonstration of the inequities of the pandemic, analyzed below in three different dimensions: 1) The origins of the pandemic, in the context of inequitable socio-ecological systems where the relationship amongst humans and between humans and nature has been broken; 2) Its manifestations, in conditions of social inequity, with its patterns of occurrence and a painful trace of disease and death; and 3) The consequences, in a vicious circle with the complex systems that gave rise to it, causing a profound situation of inequity, in other words, the pandemic as a source of more unjust differences.
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Keywords
- Pandemics
- COVID-19
- SARS-CoV-2
- Poverty
- Ecosystem
- Pesticides
- Food Security
- Health Education
- Drug Industry
- Biodiversity
- Health Services Accessibility
- Pharmaceutical Preparations
Author Biography
, Universidad del Valle. Cali, Colombia
Fabián Méndez is a professor at the School of Public Health of the Universidad del Valle and coordinates the Grupo de Epidemiología y Salud Poblacional (GESP). After studying medicine and epidemiology at Universidad del Valle, he did doctoral studies in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. He was a Fulbright Fellow in Climate Change Research and has developed research in infectious epidemiology and environmental epidemiology. His main academic interest is in understanding the complex relationships between the environment, society and health. In this sense, he promotes an inter / transdisciplinary approach to understand how the drivers and determinants of collective health are manifested in socio-ecological systems. His current work focuses on understanding the social and environmental injustices that, as a result of the breakdown of society-nature relations, are manifested in the unequal distribution of morbidity and mortality in vulnerable populations.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5201-8822
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