Treatment tents are burning in Ituri, burial teams are facing hostility, and suspected patients are fleeing quarantine centres, disappearing into communities. These heartbreaking incidents are often described as obstacles to controlling the current Ebola outbreak. For the dedicated frontline workers risking their lives every day to contain the virus, these challenges are deeply frustrating. But […] Continue reading ->
As Europe sweats through the hottest week on record for June, the continent faces the looming spectre of wildfires – just one year after last year’s deadly events in Turkiye and Southern Europe. But wildfire season is no longer episodic. It has evolved into a year-long threat, fueled by a warmer climate and its side […] Continue reading ->
For decades, malaria has been one of Africa’s most persistent health challenges. In Ghana, it was once the leading cause of death for children under five. Bed nets and antimalarial drugs reduced deaths substantially, but by the mid-2010s, the pace of improvement had declined. Climate change was altering the length and intensity of transmission seasons. […] Continue reading ->
The island country in the western Pacific Ocean has initiated a World Health Organization (WHO) review of nicotine in terms of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Psychotropic Substances In 2023, I stood in a room among other Palauan mothers, school principals, teachers, and students who had come to witness the signing of Palau’s comprehensive […] Continue reading ->
Where a person is born should not determine whether they survive, whether they live with dignity, or whether they are forced to endure years of preventable suffering while waiting for surgical care that may never come. Yet, across large parts of Africa, this remains the reality. At this year’s 79th World Health Assembly (WHA79) in […] Continue reading ->
A return on investment of 16:1 should be irresistible. So why does midwifery keep losing the budget fight, and what would make funders and finance ministers finally move? When a young mother in Mtendere, Lusaka, began bleeding heavily hours after delivering her baby, her life was in grave danger. Three midwives assessed her immediately, recognised […] Continue reading ->
What’s left to tackle in the PABS talks? As the clock ran out, and then was extended for another year, on negotiations over the Pandemic Agreement’s Annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS), the diplomacy and the nitty-gritty of the issues faced were deeply linked This edition of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot of the Geneva […] Continue reading ->
The 79th World Health Assembly adopted the first-ever resolution on steatotic liver disease (SLD) last week. For those people working outside hepatology, the moment may have seemed unremarkable. In reality, it marks an important shift in how the global health community understands chronic disease, metabolic health and prevention. SLD affects an estimated 1.7 billion people […] Continue reading ->
Just as health leaders reframed tobacco from a consumer product to a public health threat, they can now help shift the narrative on fossil fuels. In the coming days, the annual World Health Assembly will convene in Geneva. Following the recent Santa Marta Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, national health ministers and global health […] Continue reading ->
Philanthropy can help make every dollar deliver more impact. I often think about a boy I met in Kajiado County, Kenya. He was the same age as my son, but half his weight. A World Health Organization (WHO) colleague measured the circumference of his arm to confirm what was already painfully clear: he was severely […] Continue reading ->