The urgent need for a global commitment to protect healthcare workers.

Abstract

### Summary box Health workers are essential for improved global health—but the COVID-19 pandemic is decimating them. Worse still, we don’t know the true toll the virus is taking on healthcare workers. In Africa, where the healthcare workforce of many countries was already desperately thin, the WHO counted nearly 42 000 sickened clinicians as of 9 September 2020,1 but the total number of infected surely outstrips that. And the pandemic is still unfolding: ongoing community transmission of the virus in many countries in Africa means far more casualties yet to come. We lionise health workers when, upholding their professional ethics to care for the ill, they put their lives on the line—but we should not force them to choose between their own health and that of their patients. Instead of sacrificing them to suppress today’s pandemic, we must better protect this essential workforce. Health workers are at disproportionate risk of contracting COVID-19. In some countries, they initially made …