Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I explore the impact of Covid-19-related government and private sector response, and the health market on Bangladesh’s public health and primary healthcare in 2020. I analyse how the market and economy of the Covid-19 pandemic negatively affected public health needs and human life.

Paper long abstract:

The global Covid-19 pandemic declaration rapidly influenced global and local healthcare markets. Global pharmaceutical industries acted swiftly to reach the local markets worldwide. Drawing on ethnographic research, in this paper I analyse how the emergence of the Covid-19 crisis intersected with the global and local healthcare markets in 2020 to shape public health governance and affected public health interests, needs and lives in Bangladesh. During the early phase of the crisis, the misuses of administrative power and corruption among public officials, local government representatives, political leaders and bureaucrats became immediately apparent. This fostered a ground of catastrophes in public and private health sectors across the country which exposed some of the fraudulent health care services and drug sales in emergency aid, including illegal marketing of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment and the treatment of Covid-19 disease. Bangladesh state’s dependence on foreign aid and private health corporations along with the prevailing local politics coincided with state restrictions of available local low-cost solutions (e.g. Rapid Antigen test kits, Ivermectin) in combatting the Covid-19 virus. Consequently, health politics, market-based economic approaches and capitalism rendered healthcare for ordinary people expensive and inaccessible. Care seekers were deprived of low-cost technologies and preventive care during the crisis. Engaging the concept of Disaster Capitalism, I argue that the elusive role of the state, the politicised ground of health governance and the medicine market combined with corruption in public and private sectors that ultimately benefitted the private corporations rather than the urgent health needs of Bangladeshis.