The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures did put pressure on both the demand and supply of healthcare and health systems globally. Besides revealing the gaps and inadequacies in Africa’s health systems, the pandemic restriction exacerbated serious societal and health problems as school closures and lockdowns disrupted access to essential health services, increased gender-based violence and early marriages, which negatively affected reproductive health and overall wellbeing.
Health services access and utilization
At the onset of the pandemic, the fight against the spread of the virus required the mobilization of resources to acquire ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPEs) such as gloves, masks, and overalls for frontline workers. This meant that resources were diverted from critical routine health services, particularly those related to sexual and reproductive health services for women, to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the risks of maternal mortality and morbidity, HIV/AIDS infections and related deaths, adolescent pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases were heightened [
9,
10]. Other factors such as constraints of resources, particularly logistical support for healthcare providers, also contributed to declines in maternal and child health service utilization including family planning, antenatal care, and immunization [
11]. Delayed vaccination campaigns and low routine immunization coverage in many countries resulting from resource demand of the pandemic contributed to 7.7 million children in Africa missing the first dose of Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DTP–1), representing 45% of the global Fig. [
12]. Consequently, in 2022, 14 out of 23 countries in Southern and Eastern Africa had experienced major measles, cholera, and poliovirus outbreaks [
13].
In Uganda, facility-based deliveries declined by 3% and maternal deaths also increased by 7.6% [
14]. Other affected maternal health outcomes included antenatal, sexual, and reproductive health, emergency, obstetric, and postnatal care services [
14]. Significant declines in facility-based deliveries and first antenatal care attendance were recorded in Sierra Leone and Liberia [
15]. Women also avoided seeking health care due to the fear of healthcare-associated infections, which prevented them from assessing routinely required antenatal care (ANC) and post-natal health services [
9,
16]. Significant decrease in neonatal hospital admissions and increase in neonatal mortality as a result of combination of factors including limited healthcare capacity, financial constraint, and fear were reported in the Northern part of Ghana [
17]. In South Africa, a study found significant decline in the number of women who utilized the services of healthcare providers, but not among men [
18]. However, for women with no post-secondary education, the gender gap was more evident.
While many studies confirmed the above adverse impacts of the pandemic on the health of women and children, other reports showed that utilization of maternal and child health services varied across different countries, maternal health outcomes and waves of the pandemic [
19]. The level of impact of the pandemic in a particular country could be influenced by the extent of the outbreak, the influence of restrictive mitigation measures and the preparedness of the health system [
19]. Another research pointed out that as the pandemic progressed, it had to be recognized that the impact was not homogeneous among low-middle income countries or even within the same country [
20,
21]. Findings were that at the onset of the pandemic, certain sub-group of the population, specifically, young women were more affected, compared to older women when it came to access to sexual reproductive health, particularly contraceptive commodities [
20,
21].
Another study revealed that in one of Ethiopia’s referral hospitals, while the number of hospital deliveries was stable, family planning programs declined by 95%, antenatal care decreased by over 50% and neonatal admissions, including child emergency visits also decreased by over 70% [
22]. Findings from six referral hospitals in Guinea, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda also showed that despite few interruptions during the first wave, the provision of routine maternal care was maintained [
23]. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, even though the rates of facility-based childbirth and second post-natal care visits were not significantly impacted by the pandemic, ANC decreased by almost 45%, following the start of the pandemic in Kinshasa [
24]. Also, in Kenya, women continued to access health facilities, although, about 40% of study respondents reported declined access because of fear of being infected [
25].
Domestic violence and early marriages
Domestic violence is a multifaceted phenomenon grounded in a throng of factors including situational factors, and therefore tends to thrive in contexts where vulnerabilities persist [
26]. It is therefore not surprising that in Africa, intimate sexual violence is widespread, standing at 36%, and exceeding the global average of 30% [
27]. Prior to the pandemic, data showed that in over 80 countries, one in three women experienced physical and/or sexual based violence by an intimate partner in a relationship at some point in their lives [
28]. Moreover, evidence had shown that in the context of crises, women endured compounding forms of violence [
29].
The COVID-19 pandemic nonetheless disrupted economic activities, increased unemployment, and declined incomes, resources, and access to social support and safety nets (24—29). This created a conducive environment for perpetrators and triggered or further compounded the risk of domestic and/or intimate partner violence. Indeed, the surge in domestic violence worldwide resulting from the pandemic earned it the term “intimate terrorism” [
30]. The increase in reports of domestic violence moreover occurred concurrently in a period where many countries were experiencing compromised healthcare services [
31]. Life-saving support, resources and care given to women who experienced domestic or intimate partner violence were totally disrupted or less accessible [
31]. In many areas in Africa, such support was not encouraging even in the pre-COVID-19 era, which meant heightened risk of violence and debilitating health impacts.
Other social problems that increased in many African countries were the rates of child, early and forced marriages and adolescent pregnancies [
32]. Pre-pandemic estimates showed that 30% of girls in 30 African countries experienced child or forced marriages, with as many as 15 million girls being married off before age 18 [
33]. In four Eastern and Southern African countries, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia, where the Global Programme to End Child Marriage (GPECM) was being implemented, data showed that adolescent girls were severely impacted by the pandemic as the rates of violence, child marriage, and teenage pregnancies increased [
32]. The rise in these numbers were partially attributed to school closures, and limited access to sexual and reproductive health services. In a household survey in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Senegal, findings showed that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to perceived increase in child and forced marriages in Kenya because of school closures and loss of income [
34]. However, the authors found that in Ethiopia and Senegal, the pandemic had limited perceived effect on child or forced marriages, and minimal perceived effect on child and forced marriages in Uganda.