COVID-19 syndemic, stigmatization, and social vulnerabilities: A case of Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

The global spread of COVID -19 accompanied with the behavioral, psychosocial, and structural elements of social stigma engendered social and bio-medical complexity due to the COVID -19 syndemic. The study aims to explore the process of stigmatization and the extent of social vulnerabilities affected COVID -19 people of Bangladesh. The study used purposive sampling, where a total of 15 different cases were selected from 11 online newspapers in Bangladesh. Results revealed that infected and suspected patients were largely stigmatized through local hatred and eviction, forced quarantining, impeding burial process, hospital and local administration’s mistreating, family-negligence, relatives’ avoidance, and the land owners’ disgracing. The excessive media coverage of maintaining lockdown, quarantining, and physical distance were the major causes of increasing rumor where the poor-income group, female workers, and employees of health-care services were seriously vulnerable. The study findings recommend several guidelines forrecognizing practicability and capability for combatting COVID 19 syndemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Bangladesh
• COVID-19
• syndemic
• stigmatization
• social vulnerabilities

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all of the authorities of online journals.

Availability of data and material

The datasets generated and/or analyzed in the study are available from the corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contribution

The first and second authors made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, analysis, interpretation of data, drafted the initial manuscript, and revising it critically for important intellectual content. The third author made substantial contributions to conception, data collection, analysis, and critical contribution to the review of the manuscript.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no funding for this study.