Being a woman in her mid-twenties I have noticed that my social media feeds have been taken over by photos of impossibly cute babies of friends who are radiating joy and a newfound purpose and making me wish to have one of my own.  However, every now or then, I hear a different story. A story of mistreatment, humiliation, abuse, violation, and d...

When you see pictures of our world leaders, for example at COP 26 in Glasgow, you might think otherwise, but people born in the last 40 years are the largest portion of the world’s population. Although obviously generations are always diverse (and so it’s tricky to talk of distinct ‘generations’), many of them do share particular generat...

Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) marked its 10-year anniversary in 2020. That’s to say, 10 years and 7 cohorts of Emerging Voices, or about 300 EVs as we like to call ourselves. The EV2020 venture has been nothing short of anniversary dreams… and just a bit of drama: a global pandemic, virtual networking/conferencing, and a change in ...

As infections surge again, and countries across the world face wave after wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination is being touted as the most effective way of reducingboth deathsand hospitalizations. For good reason. Yet, in spite of efforts by governments to facilitate COVID-19 vaccination acceptance and uptake and in so doing, improve vacci...

“I think (others do not think, or do not think properly), therefore I am (others are-not, lack being, should not exist or are dispensable) “ (Maldonado-Torres’ critique of French philosopher René Descartes, 2007:252) This well-known quote from Descartes personifies some of the ways that have framed and informed our approaches to global h...

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 ...

There has been much attention to health systems resilience in recent years – remember that it was the epitome of the 2016 HSR global symposium. Since the arrival of the pandemic, it has become even more prominent and is now increasingly also linked to pandemic preparedness and response. So yes, here’s another editorial on this somewhat gloss...

On 5th September 2021, over 500,000 farmers gathered in Muzzafarnagar, a town located 130 km from New Delhi, to protest a set of three legislations or “farm laws”, passed by the government last September. This gathering or “Mahapanchayat” is the latest in what can be considered one of the longest and most powerful mass mobilizations in ...

I turned 65 in July, and have shifted since August 1st to the status of (young) retiree. That is indeed the rule at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, and for that matter also at Belgian universities. Not that I would have considered to stay longer (even if it were possible). I was/am actually looking forward to more time for o...