With COVID-19 cases slowly but steadily rising in Africa, the need for a real surveillance partnership between European and African airport authorities becomes urgent. Unless you have lived on another planet lately, you probably know by now that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak started in China in November-December 2019 and was decla...

(cross-posted from Clingendael where it was published first) And so it has happened. What many public health professionals and security experts had thought would eventually occur is now unfolding. It is perhaps what the World Health Organization (WHO) defines as a disease “X”, an unknown pathogen that causes human disease. A coronavirus pan...

The greatest contradiction of our times might be that we were told “not to panic” but at the same time we now have strict measures in place, so what is the truth here? I have to ask, what is being hidden from us, it is all not adding up, it seems… I have to admit, I wasn’t one to take the #CoronaVirus that seriously until recently, I me...

The point of departure for this blog is the apparent frequency of criminalization strategies in early government responses to the Corona virus. While much attention has been given to the securitization of global health responses – also in the case of Corona – less systematic focus has been given to the partial criminalization of infectious d...

There are at least a billion people with disabilities worldwide and this number is rising with ageing and population growth, making them the largest minority group globally. Among them, the number of people using assistive technology for mobility is estimated to double by 2050. In India alone, at least 20% of the disabled are confronted with lim...

Climate change is among the key themes for the upcoming Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, to be held in Dubai later this year. Health professionals (such as myself) have clearly recognized the huge opportunities and challenges that climate change has brought. But as I journey back after attending the International Conference on ...

Si le Covid-19 atteignait la région ouest-africaine où les hôpitaux et les laboratoires sont sous-équipés et en sous-effectifs, ce serait le scénario catastrophe. Rapport d’une réunion d’urgence à Bamako (14 Février). Pas de patient atteint du Covid-19 pour le moment dans les 15 pays membres de la Communauté Economique des Etats...

Since December 2019, the novel Corona virus (2019-nCoV) has grown from a small outbreak in Wuhan, China to a global concern warranting the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Not to mention global anxiety and ripple-effects. Currently (11 Feb), WHO reports more than 42...

From 28 September-4 October 2019, the WHO Regional Office for Africa (WHO Afro) organized a training of trainers’ workshop in Kampala, Uganda, to orient facility data managers, ministry of health (MoH) statisticians and other stakeholders on the use of a new harmonised health facility assessment tool. The training sought to provide guidance on...