COVID-19 and Service Provisions at Darou Khoudous Health Center of Touba

Introduction: The objective is to study the consequences of COVID-19 on service provision at the Serigne Mbacke Madina health center in Darou Khoudous in the Touba district. Materials and methods: To achieve this objective, a retrospective, descriptive study was conducted from July 2021 to December 2021. Results: Over the period 2016-2020, the age group 50-59 years and 60 years and over rarely attended the health structure. This low attendance at the health structure was further accentuated in 2020. According to consultation by service: We note that General Medicine, TRI and On-call are quite busy over the period with a significant drop in these consultations within these services in 2020. Indeed, General Medicine went from 37,378 patients in 2017 to 22,332 patients in 2020, i.e. 40%, TRI went from 35,461 patients in 2017 to 26,080 patients in 2020, i.e. 26.45%, and On-call went from 21,880 patients to 12,008 patients in 2020, i.e. 45.11%. Between 2019 and 2020 in Medicine we noted a decrease of 27.84%, in TRI a decrease of 27.8%. For patients followed for HIV at the Darou Khoudous health center, we noticed an almost complete absence of the 0-14 age group. We also noticed a low rate of new cases before 2018 and a sharp drop in the rate of new cases in 2020, a decrease of 87.84% compared to 2019. For tuberculosis patients followed in the department, we noted a strong impact on the age group >15 years, more accentuated between 15 and 35 years over the period 2016-2020. For this same age group, we also noticed a decrease in cases between 2019 and 2020, a decrease of 10%. In 2018 we also noticed a peak in cases compared to the previous 2 years. According to the EPI: variations are almost non-existent during the pandemic, on the contrary, attendances have increased since 2016, this would surely be due to awareness of the beneficial effects of EPI vaccines and that the disease initially only affected the elderly, rare are the cases of children reported. Conclusion: The data collected as part of this study show that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health services and put intolerable pressure on health systems and their staff. We urgently need to reverse this trend and strengthen the resilience of health systems.