Earlier this month,  World Breastfeeding Week was celebrated from 1st to 7th August 2023 with the theme “closing the Gap, Support for all.” Breastfeeding is essential for both infant health and survival. Breastmilk provides ideal nutrition, is clean and safe, and contains antibodies that protect against many common childhood diseases. Ad...

Mental health is increasingly gaining attention in the global health spaces, although there is clearly still (way) more effort needed to combat it. Each year a celebration of World Mental Health day is organized to raise awareness around this important issue. The World Health Organization defines mental health as state of wellbeing that enables...

The 58th World Health Assembly adopted a resolution in 2005 encouraging countries to transition into universal health coverage (UHC). That being said, when we think of universal health coverage, we envision increased access to good quality health care by all members of the population, void of financial burden. Ideally, therefore, comprehensive ...

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the first (COVAX) vaccine doses were administered on the 1st of March 2021,  in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana more in particular.  Kenya followed closely with its first batch of COVID-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca) arriving on the 3rd of March, bringing a ray of hope in a dire pandemic situation. Since then, vaccine donations have...

When the COVID 19 pandemic started last year in China and then soon after struck in Italy, there was a sense of panic in and towards Africa on its preparedness regarding management of the pandemic. With its notoriously weak health systems, there were many skeptics on how Africa would cope, including in Geneva. Whilst pondering this, the pandemi...

It’s been nine months now since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Kenya. Cases were low in the summer,  but in recent months there has been a steady increase in cases. In November, my country recorded the highest number of cases in a single month (15, 382 till now, with 289 deaths), and just a few weeks ago, Kenya broke its daily rec...

After heavy rainfall hit most parts of Kenya in the past two months, and the destruction that came with it, with abundant floods and landslides in more than a few regions, most people welcomed the dry season in my country with a feeling of relief. The feeling was short-lived, however, as soon some counties in Kenya started receiving uninvited g...

The Mexico City policy was reinstated and broadened by Trump in his first week in office, January 2017, and renamed in May (when the implementation plan of the policy was announced) as Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA). The Mexico City policy, better known as the ‘Global Gag Rule’ (GGR), was first implemented by Reagan, a R...