Global Health

By: Madhukar Pai Global health is a field that was born out of colonialism and white supremacy. Even today, it is neither diverse nor truly global. Every aspect of global health is dominated by individuals and institutions in high-income countries (HIC). This includes funding, authorship of publications, leadership of agencies, composition of boards, editorial positions, awards, and even participation in conferences. So, if global health has to be reimagined, people that typically hold power and privilege must master the art of allyship, where they see their primary role as allies or accomplices rather than leaders. Data show that two-thirds of global health agencies are headquartered in just three countries: Switzerland, UK and USA. More than 80% of CEOs and ...

GHealth News - The World Health Organization advised Ukraine to destroy high-threat pathogens housed in the country's public health laboratories to prevent "any potential spills" that would spread disease among the population, the agency told Reuters. Like many other countries, Ukraine has public health laboratories researching how to mitigate the threats of dangerous diseases affecting both animals and humans including, most recently, COVID-19. Its labs have received support from the United States, the European Union and the WHO. Biosecurity experts say Russia's movement of troops into Ukraine and bombardment of its cities have raised the risk of an escape of disease-causing pathogens, should any of those facilities be damaged. In response to questions from Reuters about its work...

By Harriet Barber Dr Anthony Fauci spoke exclusively to The Telegraph about TB in Ukraine CREDIT: J. Scott Applewhite /AP Pool The Russian invasion of Ukraine could be “devastating” for tuberculosis control in eastern Europe, and will cause a “terrible public health tragedy”, Dr Anthony Fauci has warned. Ukraine reports roughly 30,000 new TB cases annually and has one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant TB in the world. According to the World Health Organization estimates, Ukraine has the fourth highest TB incidence rate among the 53 countries of the WHO European Region. “[The war] could be devastating, quite frankly,” Dr Fauci, the chief medical officer of the United States, told The Telegraph in an exclusive interview.  “As a public health official, as a scien...

By: Keren Landman The death of global health visionary Paul Farmer on February 21 came at a bleak moment for the world. In the wake of a badly botched pandemic response, the world’s most vulnerable face threats from a changing climate, rising regional violence, and the specter of the ripple effects of armed conflict in Europe. It can feel like a particularly hard time to find hope. And yet a recurring theme across the deluge of obituaries and remembrances from colleagues and admirers of Farmer is his unrelenting optimism about delivering sophisticated medical care to the world’s poorest people. Farmer’s rejection of cynicism and sense of moral clarity were foundational to his immense contributions to global heal...

Jakarta (AFP) – Indonesia will push for the creation of a new global health agency while the country holds the presidency of the G20, President Joko Widodo said Thursday at the virtual Davos forum. Widodo said the agency would strengthen the world's "health resilience" and help make the global health system more inclusive and more responsive to crises. "The Indonesian presidency will fight to strengthen the world's health resilience architecture, which will be run by a global agency," he said in a speech to the World Economic Forum's online meeting. "(Its) task is to mobilise world health resources, including for financing health emergencies, purchasing vaccines, medicines and medical devices." The Indonesian leader said the World Health Organization had showed limited cap...

It has been a year of colossal efforts in global health. Countries battled COVID-19, which claimed more lives in 2021 than in 2020, while struggling to keep other health services running.  Health and care workers have borne the lion’s share of these efforts but often received little recognition or reward.     Life-saving COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments were rolled out, but overwhelmingly in the richest countries, leaving many populations unprotected, especially in lower-income countries.   Across other health areas, from diabetes to dementia, there have been both setbacks and hard-won successes.  Here are 10 global highlights from 2021, including a few issues you might have missed: Innovati...

By: Jeff Sparrow Nurse in a Moscow hospital It’s nearly inevitable that we will face another pandemic. If we don’t plan to counter it, tomorrow will be like today, except much, much worse. For decades, scientists warned that urban encroachment on pristine habitats would unleash dangerous new viruses. Covid-19 should not have been a surprise – and, since viruses always mutate, neither should Omicron have been. Just as Omicron replaced Delta, something else will replace Omicron. It might be a fresh variant of Covid; it might be something completely new. “[A]nother pandemic is coming,” says Debora MacKenzie in her book Covid-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened, “and no one can predict which pathogen will cause the next one.” That does...

Catherine Arsenault, Epidemiologist and Global Health Researcher and Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health - VIVIANNE CONROY By: Karl Moore From a management point of view, executives agree on the importance of leadership that adapts to the local culture. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic has further underlined the implication of acting accordingly to country contexts when it comes to global health systems. The coronavirus responses across the globe are precisely the subject of Catherine Arsenault’s current multi-country research project as a postdoctoral research scientist at Harvard’s Department of Global Health and Population. “I'm working on looking at the resilience of health systems during the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at the effect of the ...

A masked couple walks on the empty Trocadero next to the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, Tuesday, March 17, 2020. Nearly two years into a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people, every country, including the United States, remains dangerously unprepared to respond to future epidemic and pandemic threats, according to a report released Wednesday assessing the efforts of 195 countries. Researchers compiling the Global Health Security Index — a project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a D.C.-based nonprofit global security group, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health— found insufficient capacity in every country, which they said left the world vulnerable to future health emergencies, including some that might be more d...

Supporting aspirational public health leaders from Africa in acquiring advanced skills and competencies to strategize, manage and lead public health programmes that will transform public health in Africa. The African Union Commission launched the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) – Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme on 25 May 2020 in partnership with the Kofi Annan Foundation, following its approval by the Governing Board of Africa CDC in March 2018.  The aim is to support aspirational Public Health Leaders (Fellows) from Africa in acquiring advanced skills and competencies to strategize, manage and lead public health programmes that will transform public health in Africa. Fellows admitted in the programme w...