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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
All over the world, COVID-19 has redefined how we live our lives in the past year. Sadly, and more importantly, the pandemic has also claimed a lot of lives so far – with no end in sight yet. Although relatively “spared” compared to some other parts of the world, by February 2 Africa had registered 3,582,022, COVID-19 cases and 91,517 deaths...
Mental healthcare is fundamentally moral. It is, as Didier Fassin reminds us, “the government of the precarious”. In 2017, Reverend Joseph Maboe set out to find his son Billy, who was kept in a dilapidated institution for people living with severe mental and neurological conditions (PSMN) – serious forms of mental incapacitation – in Sou...
HPSR capacity building, an integral part of health system strengthening in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), was already gaining traction in recent times and the COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted its importance in developing effective and resilient health systems. Last year in March, a few of us made a call to action for strength...
Without doubt, this was a remarkable week for global oral health. During the 148th meeting of the WHO Executive Board, oral health was among the items discussed, initiated by a group of member states led by Sri Lanka and others. The last time the WHO governing bodies adopted a resolution regarding oral health was in 2007, which is ancient in a f...
As of January 19th, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has documented more than 100,000 cases and 3,445 deaths from COVID-19. That is bad enough for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) which has about 6 million inhabitants. Unfortunately, that’s not all, however. While the COVID-19 “natural disaster” has been unfolding in the region, a...
In 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a provisional organization that had been providing the rules for world trade since 1948, was replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Marrakesh Agreement formally established the WTO. Under normal circumstances, only specialists would be familiar with this document. However...
As you probably know, the World Health Organization had designated 2020 as the Year of The Nurse & Midwife to mark the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the founder of Modern Nursing. Little did the nursing and midwifery community fathom what a ‘profession defining’ year it was going to be when the announcement was made! The p...
As we kick off the new year (and in a way, a new decade), it is perhaps good to reflect a bit on the past 10+ years of IHP (International Health Policies), especially for new subscribers to the newsletter who are less acquainted with the origins of IHP. In a second part of this article, we then peer into the near future (and coming years), from ...
It seemed to be some kind of a turning point when I landed at Brussels Airport, at least for me. Indeed, having left behind nearly 17 years of life on the edge in one tiny village in Nicaragua, I was no longer a ‘Far West doctor’, as a friend had once described me. There I stood, a daughter to the left, a daughter to the right, and 250$ in ...
