( this article was written before news broke on the Trumps testing positive) For anyone who had the misfortune of tuning into the first U.S. Presidential Debate earlier this week, the phrase, “elections have consequences” was likely one of the one true things uttered by Donald Trump during a furious, head-spinning 90-odd minutes. I thought ...

Let’s set the scene: a project sought to address the high mortality rates due to malaria in villages in the coastal region of Kenya. The intervention was to distribute insecticide-treated mosquito nets to hundreds of the villages as a preventive measure of malaria. For twelve months, the project distributed the mosquito nets to households in t...

“It is as impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning”- Agnes Repplierg India’s New Education Policy (2020) has replaced its 1986 education policy, with the ambitious goal to transform India into a knowledge giant, while ensuring equity and inclusion. This article seeks to und...

Last week, David Graeber passed away, way too early, unfortunately. In this short article, some ITM staff dwell on what David Graeber meant to them, and what the global health community could and perhaps should learn from him. Feel free to weigh in as well under the blog. “Yes, we must mourn David Graeber. Thinking about his work is probably ...

While contraceptive use and uptake of family planning in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have been on the rise in recent years and decades, especially after the 2006 adoption of the African Union’s Maputo Program of Action, the 2012 London summit on Family Planning and the biannual international FP conferences after that (with many taking place in S...

(A longer version of this piece was originally published in Ceasefire ) The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has stirred up debates that previous crises such as SARS or Ebola didn’t, probably because it reached Europe all the way to the Americas, with death tolls much higher than in China. It appears “The West needs to bleed” for audiences to be...

In a recent blog, Hellowell and colleagues express concerns about the ability of the private health market to survive the shock of COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). They call on governments to support the private sector in mitigating the risks imposed by the COVID-19 crisis. WHO’s recommendation for a ‘whole-of-society- a...

As India tries to navigate the transition from Lockdown 4.0 to Unlock 1.0 (quite oblivious of the totalitarian nature of the words we chose to represent our national response to the pandemic), it is worth reflecting upon our lost opportunity as a nation to address social equity and its direct corollary – mental healthcare. But let’s start with...

The World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30 2020, the same day India reported its first confirmed case. The country, so long oblivious to this developments-except for the southern state of Kerala which had a preparedness plan ready by mid-January-quickly sprang into action. Scr...