Category: Archive
World Polio Day 2016: A Focus on Tenacity and Hope
John Bingham is an American writer and long distance runner who’s competed in more than 45 marathons. He has no connection whatsoever to global health. Nor does he claim any history or involvement with the difficult but ever hopeful struggle to eradicate polio from every corner of the world. So it might seem odd that Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentHurricane Matthew and Haiti: Putting CDC Expertise to Work
Life can quickly move from hard to catastrophic when a vulnerable island nation lies directly in the path of a Category 4 storm, as Haiti did when Hurricane Matthew roared ashore to bludgeon its remote southwest region on October 4th. People need immediate shelter when a disaster like this strikes. They need doctors, nurses, and Read More >
Posted on by 2 CommentsTransforming Hypertension Treatment in Barbados
While being a physician is certainly important to me, first and foremost I consider myself a native of Barbados. The people of Barbados are unique, but they share a commonality with citizens of many other countries: they struggle with a high burden of hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, and other risk factors for Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentThe Reality of Rabies in Ethiopia: When Man’s Best Friend Becomes the Enemy
Rabies is a disease that affects both people and animals, and is nearly always fatal once clinical signs have developed. In the United States, people are most likely to get rabies from a bat or raccoon. But in Africa and many other parts of the world, people fear getting rabies from their dogs. In Ethiopia, Read More >
Posted on by 2 CommentsLessons Learned from Scaling up HIV Treatment in Mozambique
A new CDC study examining the first decade of HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART) scale-up in Mozambique revealed fewer people are dying from HIV in recent years, likely due to more patients starting treatment at earlier disease stages. The analysis also found that people who more recently began ART were less likely to remain engaged in Read More >
Posted on byHow Better Data Means Better Decisions in Emergencies
In an emergency, health workers need access to information quickly. They need to know the facts: Where is the outbreak occurring? Who is it affecting? How is it spreading? People on the ground may each have critical pieces of the puzzle, but they may not be connecting. What’s needed is a central system where all Read More >
Posted on byOn Global Health and Being “Prepared”
What does it mean to be “prepared?” And, more to the point, what does it mean for working in global health? For some, being “prepared” means setting aside cash for emergencies and keeping their insurance up-to-date. For others, it means a plan of action or even a fresh supply of duct tape, a list of Read More >
Posted on by 1 CommentStopping Viruses that Don’t Respect Borders
CDC’s Global Immunization Plan In the first seven months of 2016 alone, 13 states reported outbreaks of measles, a highly infectious disease that killed 400 to 500 Americans a year and hospitalized nearly 50,000 more as recent as the 1950s. With the advent of the measles vaccine, routine immunizations, and the federal Children’s Health Insurance Read More >
Posted on byThink NoHep this World Hepatitis Day
“Viral hepatitis – a group of infectious diseases known as hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E – affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic liver disease and killing more than 1.4 million people every year, mostly from hepatitis B and hepatitis C. It is estimated that only 5% of people Read More >
Posted on by 2 CommentsINSPIRE: Breaking the Cycle of Violence
This blog was originally posted on The Huffington Post on July 13, 2016 As a society, we have unanimity about few things, but one of these is that no child should be harmed by violence. And yet, every 5 minutes a child somewhere in the world dies a violent death, and half of all children in the Read More >
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