This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, in which between 500 000 and a million people were brutally killed. The international community failed to act and MSF concluded that “you can’t stop genocide with doctors.” The aftermath of the genocide included analysis of the failures of humanitarian aid, and led to moves […]
Category: Global health
Jocalyn Clark: Global health in medical journals
Last week in London we had a lively and enjoyable reunion of The BMJ’s editorial registrars. In 2002 I was registrar number 13 of the now 25 year old scheme (editor in chief Fiona Godlee was number two), and wanted to reflect on my editorial career and to provide a view of The BMJ from […]
Rhys Davies: Women’s Rights are Human Rights
“How many women does it take to change a light bulb? One, but she may need to get a ladder or stand on a chair first.” As a straight white male, I am, as writer John Scalzi puts it, playing life on easy mode. I don’t have to look for long to see how much […]
Päivi Hietanen and Matthew Richard: Providing healthcare in a Syrian refugee camp
A new temporary home in the desert Assisted by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Jordanian authorities, large families flee their homes in war torn Syria to seek refuge in Jordan. Refugees cross the border in the shadows of night carrying their life possessions in rope bags and cardboard boxes. They are first registered […]
Nick Harvey: There’s now a cure for hepatitis C… but the poor can’t afford it
Picture the scenario: a disease is destroying your liver and there’s a chance you will die. There’s a cure, but you can’t have it as it costs more than you earn. There are tens of millions more of people like you. Hundreds of thousands of them die every year. It sounds like some sci-fi dystopia, […]
Nathan Sivagananathan: Trail—improving cancer care in Sri Lanka
In 2011 Nathan Sivagananathan and Sarinda Unamboowe set out to transform the lives of patients with cancer in the northern region of Sri Lanka. For over three decades the northern territory has been in the throes of terrorism, with little room for economic or social development. The ongoing war made the 400 km journey to […]
Gavin Yamey: Soldiers, academics, and an unusual health initiative
It’s not every day that you find yourself at a work meeting chatting to a soldier who led the Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team in Afghanistan and the doctor who directed the largest global health initiative in human history. Retired US Army Colonel Joseph Felter is now a Stanford University academic with expertise in studying […]
Simon Chapman: Why is Big Tobacco investing in e-cigarettes?
Discussion about e-cigarettes on social media, the blogosphere, and vaping chatrooms is dominated by impassioned accounts from former, now vaping, smokers wanting to encourage smokers to do what they have done. The early data on e-cigarettes show them to be as good as, or marginally better than nicotine replacement therapy in helping smokers to stop. […]
Seye Abimbola and Aku Kwamie: Posting and transfer in the health sector
The things we don’t talk about in global health escape our attention perhaps because they don’t have a name—the unnamed subject being, in effect, a non-issue. From 3 to 7 February, a group of 19 researchers, decision-makers, and policy advocates from 12 countries gathered for a meeting at the […]
Richard Smith: NCD among the bottom billion
My main job these days means thinking about non-communicable disease (NCD) in low and middle income countries (LMIC), but a paper in the Lancet suggests that I may be thinking in the wrong way. It’s always hard to shift your mental model dramatically, but perhaps I need to do so. I and the 11 centres […]