Photo: Children receiving the polio vaccine in Somalia. Despite violence and abuse in Somalia, we wish to report some successes with disease surveillance. We have read with total understanding, but deep sadness the pull out of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from Somalia. Since the 2011 famine declaration, there […]
Category: Global health
Seye Abimbola: Polio eradication and the lens of established thought
In the introductory essay to their timely collection of ethnographic papers on global health, “When People Come First: Critical Studies in Global Health” (which I think everyone working in global health should read), the editors, anthropologists João Biehl and Adriana Petryna, referred to the need to interrogate the “realities that we encounter in the [global […]
Richard Smith: Moving from global heath 3.0 to global health 4.0
Global health 1.0 was called tropical medicine and was primarily concerned with keeping white men alive in the tropics. Global health 2.0 was called international health and comprised clever people in rich countries doing something to help people in poor countries. It had Cold War overtones. Global health 3.0, which is still the main manifestation […]
Saleyha Ahsan: Syrian frontline medicine is under fire
Two weeks ago we braced ourselves for US military strikes in Syria. I have been based in a northern Syrian hospital, working under the umbrella of non-governmental organisation Hand in Hand for Syria, and being filmed for BBC Panorama. As an emergency medicine doctor I was integrated into one of the most challenging medical environments […]
Julien Potet: How access to life saving antisera is dwindling fast, and what to do about it
What do snakebites, tetanus, and rabies have in common? Answer: Treating patients with these life threatening conditions relies on antisera, a class of immunoglobulin-rich products derived from the plasma of human volunteers or animals and used for passive immunization after suspected exposure (to tetanus or rabies), or for antivenom activity following snakebites. Each year about […]
Martin McKee: Coalition u-turns and how the EU is leading the way on smoking legislation
Is the UK coalition government losing its touch? It has just revealed how weak it is when faced with demands from its own supporters in big business and, specifically, in the alcohol and tobacco industries. Firstly, it announced a u-turn on the pledge to introduce minimum unit pricing of alcohol made personally by the prime […]
Sandeep Kumar Panigrahi: The annual health survey in India
The Annual Health Survey (AHS), conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the register general of India, has proved to be a major breakthrough for empowered action group states in India, including Odisha. The objective of the AHS was to yield benchmarks of core vital and health indicators at a […]
Helen Macdonald: Do I practise global health?
I was strolling around the poster hall at the WONCA conference in Prague yesterday, when the question occurred to me. I fell into conversation with the presenters of two linked posters. Joane Baumer and her colleagues, who were visiting from Texas, USA. They work for the JPS health network and have a developed a global […]
Tiago Villanueva: Why does Brazil want to recruit doctors from Spain and Portugal?
I recently met up with a Portuguese friend who works as a researcher and doctor in New York. She has an immense passion for Brazil and told me she would love to work there if she gets the opportunity to. Portuguese media have recently been flooded with reports that Brazil is considering recruiting doctors from […]
Jaana Ahlblad and Päivi Hietanen: Finnish baby boxes—could this joy be reproduced?
How can a cardboard box be a symbol of equality and express the importance of children? Easily, if it’s filled with soft cotton clothes for newborns and contains a towel, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, nail clippers, and bath thermometer for the baby, as well as outdoor gear and a sleeping bag, a […]