It was pouring with rain when I arrived on a delayed flight to Rome for the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), which was organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). But I was glad to have arrived at last. ICN2 had been a long time coming. Postponed […]
Category: Global health
Global Health Film initiative: Cold Chain Mission—providing immunisation in the world’s toughest places
“Immunisation is the intervention that reaches more children than any other intervention on earth.” Those were the powerful words of Seth Berkley—chief executive of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, which is instrumental in increasing vaccine access to children in some of the world’s poorest and hardest to reach areas—said last month at an event at the London School […]
Pritpal S Tamber: Moustaches, fund raising, and independence from the current healthcare system
I am growing a moustache. This is not the kind of thing you usually need to broadcast, but I am growing it as part of Movember because I believe these kinds of mission specific campaigns are crucial to finding new ways to fund health related services. […]
Chris Simms: What can Senegal teach the West about dealing with Ebola?
Ten years ago, Peter Piot (the discoverer of Ebola) wrote the foreword to a collaborative effort on HIV strategies by nearly 200 scientists. He warned that an effective country response to the epidemic requires adherence to the so called “Three Ones” principle: a single national strategy, coordinated by one agency, and supported by one monitoring and […]
What’s the leading cause of death among children in Bangladesh? It’s not what you think
The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) program focused needed attention on unacceptably high levels of child deaths across the world, dedicating its MDG4 target to reducing the under 5 mortality rate by two thirds by 2015. Considerable gains have been achieved overall and many countries are on track toward that target. Beneath the overall trends are […]
Colin Brown: In the field in Sierra Leone—part two
In the second instalment of this blog series, I will share some ongoing challenges faced by Sierra Leone in treating Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). I will also share some success stories and how both will help shape the future of healthcare in the region. Challenges This week I watched several people die in front of […]
Lawrence Haddad: Think we can’t end global malnutrition by 2030? Think again
There is a public health crisis that is threatening the health and lives of men, women, and children across our planet at an alarming rate, and the richest nations are affected as well as the poorest. And the sad truth is that many nations in the world have not made addressing the crisis a high […]
Tackling a pandemic: Is Ebola the definitive lesson?
Until recently, Ebola was rarely heard of in the developed world, but during the last few months, we are receiving such a high volume of daily information on Ebola virus disease (EVD) that this blog would have been different if written a few weeks earlier or later. It is worth noting that all The BMJ […]
David Southall and Rhona MacDonald: More resources are urgently needed to treat Ebola in west Africa
In Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea—the countries most affected by Ebola—the outbreak has, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO), resulted in 5160 deaths. In Liberia, a country we have been working in for three years, by 29 October 2014 WHO reported 2413 deaths from Ebola. Two weeks later, on 12 November, […]
Grania Brigden: Mind the deadly gaps in the TB response
The 45th Union World Conference on Lung Health, recently held in Barcelona, opened with the health ministers of South Africa and India making bold commitments to address and reverse the tuberculosis epidemics in their countries. Five other countries also committed to ending TB, resulting in the birth of the Barcelona Declaration on TB. This political commitment […]