Challenges to Global Health Emerging from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic deepened challenges and opened new fronts where old and unresolved problems met with new problems triggered by the pandemic itself. There are several issues, problems, and challenges related to the post-COVID world we are in. This paper discusses some of them from different perspectives and elaborates on the future challenges and their solutions, which need to be tackled. Apart from the pre-existing problems, we are now also facing new military conflicts, interrupted supply chains, even in medicines supplies, as well as the worsening of climate change, further complicated by the military conflicts and a potential new global economic crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic left the world with many uncertainties about the future as there seem to be few answers ready to tackle the combination of the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with the pre-existing problems and challenges. Inequalities in terms of socio-economic differences and inequalities in health are driving disease burden, which will again be marked by the population aging and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Global collaboration and the joint search for solutions to global challenges have become inevitable. Research into behavioral determinants of health and health promotion are essential in understanding the sources of controversy regarding and resistance to proven public health interventions.