Attacks on health care in the context of COVID-19

Since the beginning of the outbreak, health care providers have been shown more support, solidarity and gratitude than they ever have. Yet, attacks on health care have continuously been reported and now also include incidents linked to the COVID-19 pandemic across the world. This unprecedented public health emergency has demonstrated that health facilities, medical transport, patients as well as health care workers and their families can – and do – become targets everywhere.

This alarming trend reinforces the need for improved measures to protect health care from acts of violence. During the COVID-19 pandemic more than ever, protecting the health and lives of health care providers on the frontline is critical to enabling a better global response. Defining attacks on health care Ensuring access to health services is the cornerstone of a successful health response. Any verbal or physical act of violence, obstruction or threat that interferes with the availability, access and delivery of such services is defined as attack on health care by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The nature of attacks on health care related to COVID-19 varies greatly across contexts and can range from the use of heavy weapons targeting health facilities to the stigmatization of health care workers. Ultimately – whether they take the form of a cyber attack or a physical assault – they deprive people of urgently needed care, endanger health care providers, and undermine health systems

The Journal of Health Policy & Management is an open access scholarly periodical that publishes peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts based on update scientific revelations pertaining to multiple aspects of leadership, management and administration of public health systems, health care systems, hospitals and hospital networks

The journal aims to highlight the development of novel informatics approaches to collect, integrate, and analyze all types of data relevant to COVID-19 in order to accelerate knowledge acquisition and scientific discoveries in COVID-19 research, thus informing better decision making in clinical practice and health policies. Authors can submit their papers via the online