Content area
Full Text
Introduction
We are in the midst of the worst health crisis in modern times due to the emergence of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China during December 2019. Coronaviruses are enveloped positive-sense Ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses with spike-like surface projections giving them a crown like appearance when viewed by an electron microscope, as depicted in Figure 1 (Berry et al., 1964). Historically, coronaviruses cause mild, cold-like responses but more recently, animal beta-corona viruses have crossed over to humans, causing severe diseases. The first such instance was in 2002–2003 when a new coronavirus of the β-genera of bats origin crossed over to humans via an intermediary host of palm civet cats in the Guangdong province of China. This virus, designated as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, was thought to have infected 8,422 people, mostly in China and Hong Kong, and caused 916 deaths, with a mortality rate of 11% (Chan-Yeung and Xu, 2003). In 2012, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged in Saudi Arabia. MERS-CoV also originated in bats with dromedary camels serving as the intermediate host. It was thought to have affected 2,494 people and caused 858 deaths, with a fatality rate of 34% (World Health Organization, 2019), and the newer strain of this family, the novel coronavirus-2 (n-CoV-2), led to the COVID-19 global pandemic with 67,011,807 confirmed cases, including 3,472,068 deaths, reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) as of 24 May 2021.
Increase in healthcare costs in advanced nations and the difficulties in accessing quality medical services in many other countries, contributed to the development of medical tourism industry, wherein people travel to different cities within a country or between different countries across the world to access quality medical services at affordable cost. The global medical tourism market accounted for $104.68 bn in 2019 and is projected to reach $273.72 bn by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.8%, according to a report published by Allied Market Research (2020).
The COVID-19 pandemic compelled governments to take extreme measures, including halting national and international transport by air, ground and water and imposing strict lockdowns, in hotspot countries and/or cities. This has resulted in a significant impact on all sectors of economies, with some...