The World Cup brings together millions of people who sometimes have nothing in common beyond a love of football. That’s not just an opportunity to sing with strangers at the pub—it’s a bona fide teachable moment. There are major inequalities between the countries who have been competing in Brazil for the last few weeks. Teams meet […]
Category: Global health
Robin Kincaid: Surgical skills in Palestine—handing over the baton
In April this year, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) team travelled to East Jerusalem to oversee the teaching of the Basic Surgical Skills (BSS) course, which has been endorsed by the Edinburgh college for Palestinian surgeons in training. The idea for this project grew its roots back in early 2010, and the scheme is […]
Leigh Daynes: Healthcare access in the West—fact, not fiction
What do America, France, the UK, and most of the richest countries in the world all have that they should not have? The answer I’m looking for is not nuclear weapons, national debts, or billionaire bankers. It’s a large (and growing) number of people who are unable to access essential healthcare—many of them extremely vulnerable. At […]
Julian Sheather: Torture, medicine, and the need for an independent eye
In August 2012, Claudia was woken at 3:00 in the morning when soldiers burst into her home in Veracruz City, Mexico. They tied her hands and blindfolded her. They took her to the local naval base where they tortured her: they subjected her to repeated electric shocks, then they wrapped her in plastic, and beat […]
Tiago Villanueva: The global burden of physical inactivity on health
The World Cup is now here, but for many of us that just means we will be watching the matches from our couch at home, or, if you’re one of the lucky ones, from the stands in Brazil’s stadiums. Ironically, such a high profile sporting event will foster sedentary behaviour in a lot of us, by […]
The BMJ Today: The World Cup—a win for the alcohol industry?
Today the world’s attention will be focused on the vibrant city of Sao Paulo in Brazil, where the host nation will kick off one of the biggest sporting events in the world in a showdown against Croatia. You may not know that BMJ has had its eye on Brazil for quite some time, and has an […]
Zoe Smith: Changing the story for neglected tropical diseases
While it’s been challenging to make neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) a priority on the global health agenda, until recently, the struggle to raise the conversation beyond niche circles has been even harder. The illnesses are prevalent in places that many would struggle to find on a map, let alone pronounce (echinococcosis and onchocerciasis, for example). Factors […]
Kevin Watkins: Universal health coverage—back on the global agenda
A few years ago, I was at a rural hospital in Eastern Province, Zambia. Doctors were trying frantically, and in the end unsuccessfully, to save the life of a five year old boy. He died from acute respiratory tract infection. But what really killed him, as one of the doctors told me afterwards, was poverty: […]
Jane Parry: How many cases will it take for policymakers to realize there is a HIV problem in Hong Kong?
Announcing the most recent HIV statistics for Hong Kong yesterday, the Department of Health’s Centre for Health Protection reported 154 new cases from January to March this year. In effect, almost every day two more people became infected with a preventable disease that requires lifelong adherence to a drug regimen in order to stay alive. […]
Rhys Davies: Reinventing the Watch—The Longitude Prize 2014
“Relax! It’s not calculating longitude at sea.” In the 18th century, before the advent of either rocket science or brain surgery, this is what folk would say to put the difficult and complicated problems of their peers in perspective. Described as the great scientific challenge of that century, the problem of knowing longitude at sea, and […]