In the multi-payer systems that characterize primary health care in Asia and the Pacific, both developed and developing countries suffer a way of delivering care that works against data sharing. Even in Hong Kong, China—which has one of the highest standards of health care in the region—services are rendered without a sharable electronic medical records […]
Category: Global health
William Cayley: What happened? A US doctor on Brexit
What just happened? Sitting in my clinical office in rural Wisconsin, the outcome of the “Brexit” vote seems quite far away—yet the day after 23 June’s vote, the shock and surprise emanating from the news stories is almost palpable. While I can’t claim to know much about the inner workings of British domestic politics, as I’ve […]
Chris Simms: Global health and Brexit—choosing when anxious
Recent research shows that anxiety not only fails to produce good decisions but seems “exquisitely designed” to produce bad ones. In local and global health, where anxiety often thwarts good decision making, efforts to improve how choices are made have focused on collaboration and the use of scientific evidence. These efforts may have some relevance […]
Goher Rahbour: In the Calais refugee “Jungle”
Having read about and witnessed scenes on television of the humanitarian disaster affecting refugees across Europe, I developed a desire to help in some form. In February 2016, the United Nations Refugee Agency stated that “It is concerned about some 4000 refugees and migrants currently reported to be living in the Calais ‘jungle’ and almost […]
David McCoy: Antibiotic resistance is also a food and climate issue
When George Osborne spoke to the IMF in April about antibiotic resistance being a greater threat to mankind than cancer, one might assume that the current government had actually listened to some professional advice from the medical community. Sally Davies, the country’s Chief Medical Officer, has been raising the alarm that the growing emergence of […]
Lifebox and Medsin—making a difference to the future of safer surgery today
It’s wrong that surgery is up to a thousands times more dangerous in low resource settings. It’s wrong that 70,000 operating rooms worldwide don’t have access to a pulse oximeter. Most medics remember a time when they were more idealistic—but do they remember taking action? Maybe they didn’t have a local branch of Medsin. Medsin […]
Marriage is not a solution to problems and doesn’t guarantee a happier life, but staying in school can
Usually when you hear about child marriage, you hear stories of young girls being pressured by their families to marry early for a bride price, or they marry to escape poverty, or because parents say school is too expensive. I was only 15 when I got married. My parents didn’t approve and tried to convince […]
Priyanka Shah: Antimicrobial Resistance—a ticking time bomb
It is estimated that by 2050 infections that have become drug resistant will result in a global loss of 10 million lives annually. This chilling revelation was the crux of a report released last month, titled “Tackling Drug-Resistant Infections Globally: Final Report and Recommendations,” commissioned by the UK government, and led by renowned economist Jim O’Neill. […]
Madhukar Pai and Barry R Bloom: TB elimination—India can lead the way
As the Prime Minister of India speaks to the US Congress today, a neglected epidemic threatens India’s progress. It’s not Ebola or Zika, but rather tuberculosis—an ancient disease that silently kills one Indian every 90 seconds. In one year’s time TB will sicken over 2.2 million Indians and kill 300 000. Between 2006 and 2014, […]
Ashish K Jha and Liana Woskie: Funding, trust, and the 69th World Health Assembly
By traditional measures, the recent World Health Assembly (WHA) was a success. The assembly, which governs the World Health Organization (WHO), passed resolutions on important topics such as reducing traffic accidents; improving nutrition; and promoting integrated, patient centered care. All good things. But the west African Ebola outbreak and WHO’s failure to respond effectively cast a […]