Poverty-Related and Neglected Diseases Through a Gender Lens

Worldwide, 2.8 billion people are affected by poverty-related and neglected diseases (PRNDs), including the three major diseases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV & AIDS), tuberculosis (TB), malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). PRNDs are both a cause and a consequence of poverty, hampering human and economic development.

Over the past 25 years, extreme poverty has been in continuous decline, but according to the World Bank the COVID-19 pandemic pushed around 70 million people into extreme poverty in 2020. Global development is in danger of being reversed, with a swift recovery threatened by overlapping events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, other conflicts, climate change and global inflation2. COVID-19 has also caused devastating setbacks in global health gains, with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) sharing that faltering progress resulted in approximately 1.5 million new HIV infections in 2021 - an excess of 1 million to global targets. Approximately 47,000 of the 69,000 additional deaths caused by malaria in 2020 were linked to disruptions in the provision of malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) also estimated an increase of 4.5% in the number of people who fell ill with TB between 2020 and 2021; while services for NTDs were the second most frequently disrupted by the pandemic. Overall, no matter which disease we speak of, the economic downturn due to COVID-19 has meant that funding and implementation efforts to tackle these diseases are stalling. Progress made over recent decades on eliminating PRNDs is thus at major risk of being reversed.

Women and girls have been particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn as they generally earn less, have less job security, are major caregivers, including caring for the elderly, and are adversely impacted by a lack of access to healthcare. The latter includes exacerbated obstacles to accessing sexual and reproductive health services, and all of this is compounded by dramatic increases in domestic violence. Similarly, people who face discrimination, stigmatisation, intolerance, or violence because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or sex characteristics are particularly at risk.

Therefore, keeping a strong gender focus is key to staving off what is for now an almost silent but imminent and multifactorial global health crisis. A strong gender lens on PRNDs in this context is all the more crucial to achieving positive health impacts. This study highlights a number of gender-related aspects of PRNDs, analysing the implications on research and innovation (R&I) needs and the role of gender-sensitive and gender-responsive approaches in fighting PRNDs.