Globally, wasting treatment services admit over 5 million children on a yearly basis, providing lifesaving therapeutic treatment to these high-risk children. Yet only one third of children with wasting receive treatment. Limited geographic coverage means that treatment is just not available in many places. Scaling-up services within countries is essential to ensure that treatment […]
Latest articles
COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States: Where is the data on race?
The United States has shifted its focus on tracking COVID-19 cases to the use of hospitalizations as a primary metric in assessing “community level risk,” based on the recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, COVID-19 hospitalization data remains murky, inhibiting public health officials to accurately understand who is […]
The COVID-19 pandemic response: A microcosm of neocolonialism that hurts us all
Modern colonization drastically differs from what it was historically. Today’s control does not require economically rich countries to invade, set up physical colonies, or exert military control in less powerful countries. Instead, the neo-colonial power dynamics and approaches of today are more complex. A key difference is the emergence of global health in the […]
Reflexivity in quantitative research – A Master of Global Health class perspective
“Are numbers in quantitative research objective?” Our 2021-2022 Masters of Global Health class at Karolinska Institutet reflected during an in-class discussion on the role of reflexivity in quantitative research. The question was raised after learning about the concept in our qualitative research lectures. While reflexivity was used as a quality measurement in qualitative research, […]
Preventing tooth decay in resource-limited settings
For the first time since it was first published in 1977, dental medicines have been added to the World Health Organization Essential Drug List. How could it take 44 years to include these items on a list addressing people’s priority needs given that untreated tooth decay is the most common global health condition? The […]
COVID-19 response allowing epidemics like tuberculosis to mount a comeback
Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck such a ferocious blow to the global health community, there was a trend in the right direction in eradicating other longstanding infectious diseases. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2015 and 2020, global tuberculosis (TB) incidence fell by 11%. Now, unfortunately, it seems that we’re losing that […]
Healthcare organizations condemn Israeli decision to designate human rights NGOs as “terrorist organizations”
The COVID-19 crisis has been marked by various restrictions placed on people to secure global health. Yet this is only one aspect of the relationship between public health and the limitations on human rights and freedoms. Recent years have seen authoritarian governments around the globe shrinking civil space – repression that has an impact […]
How COVID-19 exposed crevices in Uganda’s health workforce
At the outset of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in December 2019, the magnitude and impact of the current global pandemic was inconceivable. As it ravaged one country to another, trepidation grew in Uganda. Locally, we wondered whether we could mount and coordinate an effective response: how would we cope with inextricably high patient loads, access […]
Vaccine hesitancy: Perspective from the global polio eradication program in Balochistan
Sitting in my apartment in Geneva, my thoughts inevitably return to the streets of Quetta, Balochistan (Pakistan) where I led a network of community health workers in Quetta Block who went door to door to raise awareness and immunize children against poliomyelitis. Polio is 99% eradicated but remains endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Following […]
We must increase people’s access to and willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines
Recent research published by the journal Nature shows that people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are more willing to take COVID-19 vaccines than their counterparts in high-income countries. The researchers analysed 15 COVID-19 vaccine acceptance surveys involving 44,260 respondents across 13 countries – Burkina Faso, Colombia, India, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra […]