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Young (and occasionally less young) researchers, mostly from LMICs, present their views on global health issues.
It has been said before, and it appears to have been proven once again this week: social media can be used for the good, the bad and the ugly. In these times of increasing polarization and xenophobia, we’ve seen plenty of the latter (social media often seem to further increase polarization, rather than boost empathy for the downtrodden), but...
Earlier this week, forty-seven WHO member states in the African Region unanimously adopted a new malaria framework with specific actions to reach ‘an African Region free of malaria’ by 2030. In a meeting held in Addis Ababa on the 21st of August, they came up with a framework to guide member countries towards attaining targets of the Global ...
Every Friday, Kristof Decoster, the editor of the International Health Policies (IHP) newsletter sends it out to ardent readers from all over the world including those in Africa. The newsletter is an initiative of the Health policy unit at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, Belgium and has been in existence since 2009. It is ...
The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio (“Rio 2016”) are the first Olympic Games taking place in Latin America since 1968 in Mexico (not exactly a resounding success, we recall); it’s also the first time such an event is held in South America. People around the world are eagerly following the games on TV and social media, and Latin Americans are n...
Like many others, I enjoyed Sophie Harman’s recent paper on the legitimacy of the Gates foundation in global health governance (GHG). I’m not sure I understood everything (I’m one of these people who see their IQ decrease by at least 1 % with every year that passes, unfortunately), so I won’t attempt a review of the paper here. I hope So...
Over a year ago, I suffered from an unusual fever with severe weight loss. Fifteen days into the fever, desperately despondent and confused about the cause of my ailment, being a medical doctor myself I realised that this was not just any ordinary infection. I consulted a general physician in town and was recommended a thyroid profile test based...
On a warm, sunny Sunday morning I arrived in Antwerp, the second biggest city after Brussels in Belgium and my home to be for the next two months. More specifically, my new “home” is the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM). Coincidentally, I arrived on the 31st of July, and Belgium, a country in Europe, not a city as US presidential nominee...
Last week, the Economist spotted a new political divide, at least in the US and many European countries, between “open” versus “closed” types, or pro-globalization and anti-globalization politicians (and voters). As the globalization backlash in “rich countries” (in outdated Economist jargon) is now pretty clear for everybody, wi...
Time really flies! It’s already the fifth edition of the Emerging Voices for Global Health (EV4GH) programme – initiated by the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (ITM) in 2010. And while ITM remains a critical partner, the EV initiative has evolved into a multi-partner venture, steered by the Institute of Public Health (IPH) Bangalore, ...
