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 […]
Tag: WHO
Amanda Glassman on the difficult task of setting priorities at the WHO
As country delegations prepare for the 65th session of the World Health Assembly next week, the reform of the institution itself is only one topic on a list of 20 agenda items and 52 sub-items to be considered by the organisation’s governing bodies. Setting priorities and fully funding those priorities has been a challenge for the […]
Florian Sparr on strengthening the global R&D system: innovation for health needs in developing countries
On Friday 4 May 2012 “Strengthening the Global R&D System: Innovation for Health Needs in Developing Countries” took place in Geneva. The keynote address, “Investing in Global Public Goods” was given by Joseph E Stiglitz, recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and professor at Columbia University. […]
Richard Smith: Lunch with 90 health ministers in Moscow
Last week I enjoyed myself facilitating a lunchtime meeting of 90 health ministers at a meeting in Moscow on non-communicable disease. The meeting, like all global meetings, was something of a trial—see previous blog—but the lunch was fun. I wasn’t clear exactly who was there, but the meeting included ministers from China, India, Russia, US, […]
Richard Smith: Working towards universal health coverage
Some one billion people have no access to health care, while each year 150 million experience financial catastrophe and 100 million are pushed into poverty because of having to pay for health care. Those are some of the reasons why the world needs universal health coverage, said David Evans from WHO at the 13th Annual […]
Carl Heneghan and Matthew Thompson on Tamiflu in children: what’s all the fuss?
Carl Heneghan The last few days has been hectic since the publication of our systematic review in the BMJ on the use of antivirals in children. By now, you are probably aware of the findings given the media interest. Basically, our study raised questions about the usefulness of antiviral flu drugs in preventing and treating […]
Helen Macdonald on the calm, waves of flu, vaccines, and other stories
Calm settled over swine flu coverage this week as the northern hemisphere headed into the summer holidays; but much remains uncertain. Stories tracking the Health Protection Agency’s weekly flu figures fell from the front pages. But based on the agency’s numbers, the press report that cases, consultations, admissions and deaths from swine flu are far […]
Annabel Ferriman on questions for Margaret Chan
The spread of A/H1N1 flu has propelled Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, into the limelight. On 11 June she was on television and radio programmes across the world, declaring that “the world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic” and that “further spread is considered inevitable” […]
Domhnall MacAuley on shared decision making
Democracy means involvement in decision making but it may not always lead to the best outcomes. With this simple analogy, Gerd Gigerenzer (Berlin), captured the potential hazards of clinical shared decision making in his keynote address to the 5th International Shared Decision Making Conference in Boston (June 14-17). […]
Philipp du Cros dreams of a rapid point of care test for tuberculosis
In my work with Médecins Sans Frontières I constantly face dilemmas when trying to decide whether a patient has tuberculosis or not. In the countries where we work, diagnosis for tuberculosis still relies on the use of sputum microscopy, a test developed over 100 years ago, that will detect only 45-65% of cases when performed […]