Most of my work is concerned with non-communicable disease (NCD) in low and middle income countries, so I’ve got to know a fair bit about the subject. But yesterday I spent an afternoon at Imperial College listening to a series of short presentations on NCD in low middle income countries (LMIC), and I learnt a […]
Health services in Nigeria mirror political organisation. The federal government is responsible for tertiary care, state governments are responsible for secondary care, and local government runs primary care. The financing of (but not the responsibility for) public health is tied to the flow of funds from the federation account. Funds are shared between levels of […]
When world leaders gather in Rio this month they will be hammering out a new set of goals to measure sustainable development. This time it’s the SDGs (sustainable development goals)—goals which will influence a new development framework. But before we rush to embrace another acronym, we need to tackle a basic injustice left over from […]
A new hard-hitting film “Mother: caring for 7 billion” should be required viewing for all doctors, policy-makers, and other people. Its message is that the exponentially increasing world population is the major cause of poverty, over-consumption, food poverty, riots, wars, de-forestation, ill-health, major crises, conflict, and climate change. It has vignettes from biologists, medics, and […]
Sometimes, while attending a World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, I get the feeling that I am in a parallel universe where diplomat speak serves to smooth over unresolvable conflict and where we are discussing not the world as it is but a fantasyland. That feeling was never stronger than when listening to contributions from […]
As I queued in the rain to get through security I pondered life in a non-governmental organisation (NGO) rather than a Ministry of Health. It rarely makes the headlines in the press but every year the World Health Organization (WHO) has its general assembly in Geneva. It brings together government delegations from member countries from […]
I believe the economy of the 21st century will be driven by the health sector. The economy of the 20th century was driven by machines which addressed human toil. The health sector can create millions of jobs for the extremely skilled, semi skilled, and unskilled workers. These jobs are vital for the stability of society. Lack […]
My previous blog was about the Indian finance minister’s 2012 budget speech, which marked a significant moment for the much awaited, much required, paradigm shift in the government’s approach to reduce undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency. An inter-sectoral strategy to address undernutrition in India, however complex it initially appears, is not that difficult to implement. Professor […]
In an attention-grabbing presentation, Paul Walker, of the US affiliate Green Cross International, engrossed delegates at the World Congress of Public Health in Addis Ababa with his skillful exposition of the burden on humanity represented by warfare and the preparations for it. Tying the issues neatly into the concerns of Africa, he noted that the […]
The author Philip Gourevitch once wrote: “Oh Congo, what a wreck. It hurts to look and listen. It hurts to turn away.” Exploited and misruled for much of its modern history, this country has spent more than a decade in a state of semi-permanent civil war. 5.4m people have died, mostly from disease and starvation, […]