2015 is looking like it could be a watershed year for global health. As the United Nation’s millennium development goals come to fruition, and we move towards a post 2015 sustainable development goals model, there will no doubt be much reflection on where we’ve collectively succeeded—and failed. There has been much talk in recent years about […]
Category: Global health
Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch: The United Nations general assembly special session on drugs in 2016
In April 2016, representatives of the world’s nations will gather to evaluate drug policy in a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS). While prohibitionist policies are still the norm, a rising tide of voices are demanding evidence based responses that respect human rights, promote public health, and reduce crime. Voices for reform reached the […]
Jocalyn Clark: Are slums creating equality?
When you fly into Mumbai from the east, there is an extraordinary descent passing over mounds of lush green foothills reminiscent of Hawaii. It’s quite mesmerising. And then even more so is what lays at the foot of these foothills: a vast sprawl of tin roofed shanties, which I later learn is a slum of […]
Rosalind McCollum: Reflections on Ebola from my time in Sierra Leone
It was a rare privilege to return to Sierra Leone for a couple of months on a break from my PhD studies, where I joined former colleagues at Concern Worldwide in training health workers, volunteers, support staff, and community members on infection prevention and control at peripheral health units as part of the response to […]
Sarah Kessler interviews Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande, surgeon, author, and indie DJ (check his Twitter feed for mini playlists between the policy), just delivered the Reith Lectures for BBC Radio 4. Broadcast to more than 50 million people worldwide, “The Future of Medicine” ranged across the UK, the United States, and India in a quest to navigate “the messy intersection of […]
Guddi Vijaya Rani Singh: What matters—medicine, culture, and the space in between
My grandfather passed away last year. Surrounded by travel weary loved ones (from an extended family that also extends across continents), this man from rural India was promised a peaceful death in dignity. Except that he died in 2013 in one of Delhi’s largest private hospitals, with every medical test and procedure made available by […]
John Middleton and Jim Parle: Food crime—why should doctors care?
Food crime is big business. It is everywhere. It is international. The same organised crime networks that profit from drugs, cigarettes, booze, people, or any other kind of international traffic also profit from food crime. You can call it food fraud if you wish. But we should not be tempted to think that the “horsegate” scandal […]
Sandra Lako: The impact of Ebola in Sierra Leone
Today is the 228th day of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. A year ago I would not have believed anyone who told me that I would be in the middle of an Ebola outbreak in January 2015. A confirmed Ebola case in West Africa never crossed my mind. Even in May of last year, […]
Christmas Appeal: The 12 days of constructing an Ebola management centre
Sunday: As soon as you touch down in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Ebola hits you—or the awareness of it. Health forms to fill in, chlorine handwashes before you even enter the terminal building, zapped with a temperature gun before you step outside. Public health messages and precautions continue throughout the city: big posters announcing that “Ebola is […]
Shinjini Mondal: Reframing the challenge of urban slums from Cape Town to Mumbai and beyond
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit South Africa and learn about the health system in Cape Town and the health issues of Khayelitsha, an informal (and notorious) township in Cape Town. I was part of the 2014 Emerging Voices for Global Health group of young health systems researchers, who were attending the third Global […]