Journal of Gerontological Social Work

ISSN: 0163-4372 (Print) 1540-4048 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wger20

Geriatric Care during Public Health Emergencies:

Lessons Learned from Novel Corona Virus Disease
(COVID-19) Pandemic

Hoimonty Mazumder, Md Mahbub Hossain & Anupom Das

To cite this article: Hoimonty Mazumder, Md Mahbub Hossain & Anupom Das (2020):
Geriatric Care during Public Health Emergencies: Lessons Learned from Novel Corona
Virus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic, Journal of Gerontological Social Work, DOI:
10.1080/01634372.2020.1746723

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2020.1746723

Published online: 26 Mar 2020.

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JOURNAL OF GERONTOLOGICAL SOCIAL WORK
https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2020.1746723

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Geriatric Care during Public Health Emergencies: Lessons

Learned from Novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19)
Pandemic
a
Hoimonty Mazumder , Md Mahbub Hossainb, and Anupom Dasc
a
Ipas Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh; bDepartment of Health Promotion and Community Health
Sciences, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA; cJames P Grant
School of Public Health, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Geriatric care in public health emergencies is a serious concern, Received 18 March 2020
while, high case-fatalities among older adults across the globe Revised 20 March 2020
in COVID-19 pandemic implies lack of preparedness. Most of Accepted 20 March 2020
the countries irrespective of developing and developed one KEYWORDS
enormously struggling because of an inchoate response sys- Emergency preparedness;
tem ignorant of geriatric health needs. Therefore, a robust geriatric care; covid-19
approach is highly essential that requires an integrated emer- pandemic; geriatric Health
gency preparedness by addressing geriatric care. policy; inclusion of geriatric
care

Dear Editor,
Geriatric care is disproportionately developed across health systems around the
world, which may not provide adequate care to aging populations especially during
public health emergencies. The recent outbreak of novel corona disease (COVID-
19) has shown how health systems, both in developed and developing countries,
have been struggling to provide care to critical patients most of whom are older
adults. The case fatality rate in COVID-19 indicates that older people are dying at
a higher rate compared to other age groups. China, the earliest nation affected by
COVID-19, manifested that the case fatality rate was 8% amongst 70–79 years
which was almost double among individuals aged 80 years or more (Wu &
McGoogan, 2020). A similar pattern was found in Italy, where of those who died
by COVID-19 attack, 42.2% belonged to the 80–89 age group, 32.4% were
70–79 years and 8.4% were in the 60–69 age group whereas global average fatality
rate is 3.4% (Remuzzi & Remuzzi, 2020; WHO, 2020). Therefore, the aging
population is a major concern in estimating mortality and morbidity during
COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. This scenario, in one hand is manifesting
the pathogenic virulence of COVID-19 while in the other hand is featuring the lack
of inclusiveness of geriatric care in global emergency preparedness, irrespective of
developing or developed countries. Being a country with 23% aging of its total
population, Italy is enormously struggling to reduce death rate among older

CONTACT Hoimonty Mazumder mazumderhoimonty86@gmail.com Ipas Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh

© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 H. MAZUMDER ET AL.

adults. Such challenges reflect a lack of emergency preparedness that specifically

recognizes the health needs of older adults. Moreover, older people contribute to
the major sharing of global burden of chronic diseases (Marengoni et al., 2011),
which is also identified as a predisposing factor of current fatalities from COVID-
19 outbreak; hence, all potential attributes related to aging should have considered
in the country’s emergency preparedness. Though the intensity of this global
outbreak is highly acerbic and impetuous, however, it is clearly revealing a bitter
truth regarding a country’s emergency preparedness against massive outbreak
which seems completely inchoate.
We recommend all countries focus on emergency preparedness and integrate
specific strategies for geriatric care because of this group’s high vulnerability and
preexisting health conditions. Since population aging is growing with an unpre-
cedented pace globally, country-level geriatric policy is highly essential in order to
address all possible challenges of older people from health care to basic amenities
including financial security. Strengthening community-level healthcare for older
adults by capacitating domiciliary health workers may facilitate health promotion
and disease prevention. Also, such community-based caregiving may result in
better public health surveillance ensuring early diagnosis and management of
infectious disease outbreaks among the geriatric population. Finally, an integrated
multisectoral network should be established by addressing potential health chal-
lenges and associated problems among older people. Developing such proactive
plans for emergency preparedness and response action may address the high
burden of mortality and morbidity during public health emergencies like
COVID-19 pandemic.

ORCID
Hoimonty Mazumder http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3787-3780

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