Blog

Refugees Day

Honouring Refugees – Together, We Heal, Learn & Shine!

“Refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, with the same hopes and ambitions as us—except that a twist of fate has bound their lives to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.” Khaled Hosseini Standing in Solidarity with Refugees Around the world, 82 million people have been forced to flee their homes, food crises have worsened, with protracted conflict, extreme weather and the pandemic exacerbating shortages, as many as 115 million people have been Read more

By Leah Sarah Peer, ago
Health Footprint

Climate Footprints of Healthcare

Climate change is a global health threat—contributing to heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and fires, altered infectious disease patterns, food shortages, and air pollution.  It adds an increased burden on  healthcare systems across the world. But less is known about the reverse: the environmental footprints of the healthcare sector have not been traced enough.  Healthcare’s Climate Footprint The Healthcare sector is responsible for a substantial share of the world’s emission of greenhouse gases and air Read more

By Preeti Shakya, ago
Destigmatizing menstruation

Destigmatizing menstruation in Nepal

Dr. Preeti Shakya is a medical doctor from Nepal who founded Project “In Her Hands” in 2017 with an aim to destigmatize menstruation and normalize conversations around it. In this interview, she tells us about what led to starting this initiative and how it’s like working with the local community.  1.  What are the main goals of the project to destigmatize menstruation ‘In Her Hands’? Menstruation is still a taboo subject in many developing countries Read more

By Preeti Shakya, ago
Trachoma

LET’S TALK ABOUT NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES: TRACHOMA

Two weeks ago, on 20th April, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that  Gambia had eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. Although this is great news for the global health community, to fully understand the relevance of it, it is crucial to talk about trachoma as a Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) and about NTDs themselves still posing one of the greatest challenges for health equity. Neglected Tropical Diseases: What Are They and Why Are Read more

By Almudena Sanz Gutierrez, ago
Malaria World Day

The Forgotten Epidemic: A Malaria-Free World Starts With Us

“Health is a human right, not a privilege. No one should get sick and die from diseases that are preventable and treatable. All our efforts in the response and green recovery to COVID-19 need to ensure that other diseases, such as malaria, are not neglected. We must continue to invest in youth-led solutions to combat malaria around the world”.  – Ms. Jayathma Wickramanayake, United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth A Human Rights Issue: Malaria Read more

By Leah Sarah Peer, ago
Solidarity

WHY AREN’T WE SERIOUS ABOUT SOLIDARITY?

To find out whether solidarity could play a role in societal efforts to reduce health inequalities, in this blog I will take you along in my journey across the main drivers of public health actions. We will discover the role public health ethics plays and how it differs from traditional well-known bioethics, only to find out solidarity is one of its main moral values. Finally, literature about solidarity’s potential will bring us back to the Read more

By Almudena Sanz Gutierrez, ago
Covid and climate change: two crises

A Tale of Two Crises: COVID and climate change

Humankind is facing the overlap of two crises with unprecedented impacts on our society: COVID- 19 and climate change. COVID-19 and the climate crisis have exposed the fact that the poorest and most marginalized people in society are the ones suffering most. In both crises, we must ensure that the most vulnerable ones receive the attention, guidance and assistance they need. Coordinating the responses and decisions being made now creates an opportunity to improve public health systems and create a more sustainable economic future for everyone, reducing the chances of a new pandemic.

By Flávia Monteiro Borges, ago
Tuberculosis World Day

TUBERCULOSIS: THE OTHER PANDEMIC

In 2020, we have all learned what a pandemic is, but we may have failed to recognize the relevance of other ongoing pandemics. On World Tuberculosis Day, we reflect upon this disease and its own pandemic, the factors related to it and the relevance of the fight against it. Why is tuberculosis still an issue? Why mustn’t we forget about it? But, what is more important, what can we learn from our previous mistakes? Tuberculosis Read more

By Almudena Sanz Gutierrez, ago

The Time to End Racial Discrimination is Now!

“It may always be necessary for us as a society, to pay careful attention to the impact of our laws, policies, and practices on racial and ethnic groups and consciously strive to ensure that biases, stereotypes, and structural arraignments do not cause unnecessary harm or suffering to any individual or any group for reasons related to race.”- Michelle Alexander, a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and author of The New Jim Crow: Read more

By Leah Sarah Peer, ago
Equal access COVID 19 vaccine

Tackling unequal access to COVID-19 vaccine: solidarity or common sense?

By February 2021, more than 100 million cases and 2 million deaths from COVID-19 have been confirmed since the beginning of the pandemic. While only about 2% of these cases have been reported in Africa, the Americas are leading the global ranking. With this scene, countries have rushed to contribute in a never-before-seen global effort to develop an effective vaccine. In less than a year, more than 70 vaccines were in clinical trials on humans, Read more

By Antía Figueroa, ago