DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania—Blaring Singeli music is one of the few sources of entertainment for poor slum dwellers in Manzese, part of Tanzania’s smoke-belching capital city of Dar es Salaam. But for the 32-year-old Mariam Kinesha, the electronic music known for its fast beats, exuberant shaking dance style and muddled MC-driven lyrics, is not only […] Continue reading ->
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, an explosion of information and misinformation burned across the Internet. Health experts and officials had a choice: To turn a blind eye to the fake news being shared on social networks or to take action themselves and use these portals to disseminate essential information rapidly. […] Continue reading ->
A genetic revolution is coming. It’s time the medical community and policymakers discuss it. As technology advances and the price for genetic testing decreases, it is likely that within the next five years, DNA sequence information will be part of a patient’s medical records. Such a move would revolutionize the way doctors diagnose and treat […] Continue reading ->
Before the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted in 2003, the World Health Organization had worked for many years to prevent damage caused by tobacco consumption with the goal of passing an international agreement on tobacco regulation. The agreement, however, was not moving forward. “The real breakthrough came as scientific evidence emerged showing the […] Continue reading ->
Twenty years ago, 16-year-old Mulikat Okanlawan embarked on a 1000-kilometer journey from her home in the Nigerian capital of Lagos to the Northwestern city of Sokoto in a bid to change her life. She is a survivor of noma, a little-known bacterial disease that attacks cells in facial tissue and bones. On paper, Okanlawan had […] Continue reading ->
Whether researchers provide good quality data or not, healthcare systems will continue to function. In this episode of the “Global Health Matters” podcast, Margaret Gyapong, director of the Institute for Health Research at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana, tells host Garry Aslanyan that this has been a hard lesson that has […] Continue reading ->
For five years, the NCD Alliance has been calling out that those directly affected by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have mostly been absent from the decision-making that affects their health and lives directly and indirectly through several initiatives. One of them, “Our Views, Our Voices,” a series of multimedia diaries, recently celebrated five years since its […] Continue reading ->
A four-year-old asthmatic girl from Ukraine was forced to relocate to a gas station earlier this week where she could connect her ventilator, after a Russian missile attack cut off her city’s electricity supply, leaving her without any other means of receiving life-saving oxygen. Pictures of her frightened, frozen eyes made social media. But according […] Continue reading ->
A special project celebrating the fifth anniversary of “Our Views, Our Voices” | Learn more One time, as Wendy Reaser was visiting the emergency room, she heard a specialist describing her as “fat and lazy,” adding that she did not want to put the work into being healthy. This experience, as well as many other […] Continue reading ->
When Patty García was a medical student in Peru some 30 years ago, she was already aware of the detrimental effect of corruption on health systems. “Back then, the corruption related to the distribution of drugs,” Garcia, who would go on to become her country’s Health Minister in 2016, shares during the latest episode of […] Continue reading ->