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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
As you probably know by now, this year the 40th anniversary of the Alma Ata declaration is being celebrated. The declaration committed the world to achieving Health for All via Primary Health Care (PHC), and this by 2000. That didn’t quite work out. As a reminder, “The Primary Health Care principles affirm health as a human right based on eq...
While most people living in the Americas these days wake up to watch soccer matches of their all-time favorite country teams (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico…), we Nicaraguans wake up to count the dead and the missing from the night before. Living under siege has become the ‘new normal’ since a nation-wide social uprising started on April 18th. ...
Career planning is very important, and not just for football players. Sometimes it is good to have a coach who can help you refine your goals, outline the things you need to do in order to achieve those goals and assist with finding relevant contacts in your field. True, it is not always necessary to have a coach if you are very disciplined and ...
Well, that was interesting. The G7 countries (plus or minus 1—more on that later) and a handful of low and middle income countries (LMICs) met last week in Canada, and the world is still reeling from the drama. I hate to say it, but that’s what seems to happen these days, when you leave it up to politicians to solve the world’s problems....
In April 2018, the Council of Europe Committee on Organ Transplantation (CD-P-TO) adopted a statement rejecting the concept of Global Kidney Exchange (GKE) and advising its State members, hospitals and medical professionals not to engage with GKE programs. The committee argued that GKE raises important ethical concerns and perverse financial inc...
Tuberculosis (TB) has killed far too many people around the world for many decades, and to this day continues to take millions of lives. The global response to this tragic disease has been disappointing and not very coherent, so far, but the upcoming UN meeting on TB to be held on the 26th of September 2018 in New York is seen by the BRICS count...
Last Saturday (26 May), the very last (side-)event of the World Health Assembly in Geneva was about one of the most embarrassing challenges in international health work: “#AidToo: Sexual exploitation in international cooperation”. #AidToo is a sub-section of the #MeToo movement which definitely needs no introduction, as the ripples it has ca...
The incidents around the perimeters of the Gaza fence, which separates the area from Israel, have led to more than 12,000 Palestinians being injured, and a further 110 unarmed people dying. Reactions have ranged from outrage to blaming the Palestinians for their victimhood, echoing the old and well-known statement of the late Israeli Prime Minis...
Almost right after the Alma Ata declaration forty years ago, health started being treated (again) as a problem in search of technical solutions: good policies, drugs, reformed financial markets, …. When correctly mixed as prescribed, results are down mostly to implementation, was the predominant message, in spite of the (just agreed upon) Alma...