Essential Health Services - A Guidance Note: How to Prioritize and Plan Essential Health Services During COVID-19 Response in Humanitarian Settings

Health clusters and partners are facing considerable technical and operational challenges in humanitarian settings to safely deliver COVID-19 response and maintain essential health services. Increased operational challenges such as movement restrictions, diversion of human resources, supplies and funding as well as increased operational costs contribute to the disruption in availability and utilization of essential health services.

Furthermore, fear and mistrust of health care being provided as well as stigma related to COVID-19 has, in many settings, resulted in the decreased utilization of services as affected populations are unwilling to seek care. These disruptions to health services raise concern of the resultant impact COVID-19 may have on excess mortality and morbidity.

Lessons learned from the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola Outbreak note that disruptions to the provision and utilisation of essential health services resulted in substantial increases in mortality from malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis.  As such the Global Health Cluster and partners have developed this tool to help health clusters and partners utilize a systematic approach to prioritizing, maintaining and adapting essential health services during COVID-19 response should they be unable to continue providing the usual package of services safely.