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 ->
African leaders opened the World Health Summit Regional Meeting at the United Nations complex in Nairobi this week with a unified declaration that two decades of dependence on foreign aid for health is over. “The challenge that I see is that many of the leaders in our continent believe that it is somebody else’s responsibility. […] Continue reading ->
People typically think of pandemics in terms of their biological consequences, but science journalist Laura Spinney argues that their impact is shaped just as much by human behaviour and language. On a recent episode of “Dialogues,” part of the Global Health Matters podcast series, Spinney joined host Garry Aslanyan to discuss the lessons of the […] Continue reading ->
The gas that keeps hospital MRI scanners running has been caught in the crossfire of the war in Iran, raising the prospect of diagnostic delays, rising costs and rationing of one of modern medicine’s most important imaging tools. Roughly a quarter of all helium consumed worldwide goes toward cooling the superconducting magnets inside MRI scanners. […] Continue reading ->
More than 60 countries now include refugees and migrants in their national health policies, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report tracking progress on commitments first set out by the World Health Assembly in 2019. The finding, drawn from a survey of 93 member states, is the first systematic count of how countries […] Continue reading ->
In the latest episode of Trailblazers with Garry, Garry Aslanyan visits Accra, Ghana, to speak with Professor John Owusu Gyapong, Secretary General of the African Research Universities Alliance. Gyapong took on the role in 2024, leading efforts to strengthen research collaboration across African universities. His work focusses on building capacity within the continent and supporting […] Continue reading ->
This has been a brutal year for global health, with shock cuts in development aid to countries most in need; a knock-on budget crisis for United Nations (UN) agencies; widespread humanitarian crises, extensive disease outbreaks, and mounting climate-related health challenges. Health Policy Watch (HPW) has provided daily coverage of developments, and our reporters were often […] Continue reading ->
Sudden fever, a severe cough and acute respiratory distress are the familiar onset symptoms of seasonal flu, which has affected WHO’s European Region with unusual intensity and speed this year. As the Northern Hemisphere enters winter, health systems are struggling to manage an epidemic driven by an aggressive, genetically mutated influenza strain A(H3N2) subclade K. […] Continue reading ->
Global health knowledge is expanding faster than ever, but so are confusion and inequity over who can access trustworthy information and use it to improve their lives. In a live recorded discussion at the World Health Summit in Berlin, featured in the latest Global Health Matters podcast, Joy Phumaphi, executive secretary of the Africa Leaders […] Continue reading ->
Nearly 840 million women, or roughly one in every three globally, has experienced intimate partner or sexual violence during their lifetime, according to a landmark report released on Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and six other United Nations (UN) partner agencies. In the past 12 months alone, 11% or 316 million women who […] Continue reading ->