This is an update of an earlier blog (15 November 2012 – here), which described what is happening around the global framework on non-communicable diseases, and how NCDs link into discussions on the successors to the Millennium Development Goals (due to expire in 2015) and the proposed new set of Sustainable Development Goals (as proposed […]
Category: Global health
Suchita Shah: The lamb’s mother and the room of hope
A day in the life of a Chilean family doctor She wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. A thin circle of white skin against the dark tan of her left ring finger is the only visible sign of her recent loss. She sits in the ‘sala de espera’. Esperar, in Spanish, means […]
No (wo)man is an island…and neither is Britain when it comes to violence and HIV
Emma Bell, Susan Bewley, Silvia Petretti, Lynda Shentall, and Alice Welbourn. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) [1], increases the vulnerability of women and girls to acquiring HIV. Research from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and now the UK shows that gender based violence, of which IPV is one part, is also experienced by women with HIV—often precipitated […]
Richard Smith: Non communicable disease and sustainable development
There is a sense that if you are not working at something that helps counter climate change (or climate disruption, as it should be called) then you are wasting your time. You are Nero, and Rome is burning. Those of us who work on non communicable disease (NCD) are “lucky” in that most of what […]
Tessa Richards: Preventing disease with plastic water bottles and esprit de corps
A mosquito buzzed idly against the window inside the coach. Was it carrying the dengue virus we wondered? And if it was, what is the chance of dying from dengue haemorrhagic fever? Such questions run through your mind when you are in a country where the disease is endemic, and as the WHO has recently […]
Suchita Shah: Health as a gateway to global development
A week ago, I was writing about rights—in this particular instance, the right to safe water, having personally experienced the city of Santiago without water during my stay in Chile. It seemed to me, as the city waited for water companies, and not hospitals, to oblige, that many solutions to fundamental public health problems lie […]
Shauna Mullally on fixing the lack of medical equipment in Africa
I see a lot of medical equipment that isn’t working. In fact, that’s my job. I’m a biomedical engineer and I spend a lot of time in Africa working with hospital staff, educators, and policy makers trying to understand why equipment doesn’t work and trying to do something about it. The figures themselves speak loudly. […]
Richard Smith: Syria, now’s top sorrow
Climate change will soon destroy us. Global poverty is increasing. Non-communicable disease is sweeping the planet. Communicable disease is far from defeated and may re-emerge in new and terrible forms at any moment. Mothers are continuing to die in childbirth. War is now endemic, and nowhere, literally nowhere is safe. The tentacles of the pharmaceutical […]
Rej Bhumbra: Global surgery—global wellness
The Chinese phrase, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” is widely used, but its principles hold true, especially if you are working in the field of global surgery. A meeting organised at the Royal College of Surgeons […]
Christopher Exeter on the Global Burden of Disease study
Mid December saw the launch of the decennial Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study at the Royal Society in London. The study is the global rating of mortality, morbidity, and disability. The data tells a familiar story. Where infection and malnutrition related illnesses were once the primary causes of death, these have now been replaced […]