As the full horror of the Orlando shootings unfolded, another story gained a slow and steady visibility in the media – the issue of blood donation. Not since Edward Cullen – the teenage heartthrob of the Twilight series – glided through the cafeteria doors of Forks High School, has the issue of blood received such attention, unfortunately ...

Many health outcomes indicators are worse for men than women but men’s health is often overlooked by global and national health organizations. In this blog, I argue that there is a strong ethical, economic and social case for new approaches that address the needs of men and justify their inclusion in the dialogue about the implementation of th...

“It falls to the health sector to show some principled ethical backbone in a world that, for all practical appearances, has lost its moral compass,” these powerful words spoken by Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, during  her opening speech at the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) continue to echo through my mind long after we r...

The influential global health scholar, Ilona Kickbusch writes and thinks a lot about “gridlock” in global health governance; living in strike-plagued Brussels these days is helping me to experience first- hand the implications of gridlock. When I decided to attend the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Forum 20...

 I wasn’t quite sure whether to celebrate or mourn the inclusion of road safety as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), and more recently on the agenda of the recent 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva. I enjoy both driving and walking – though Delhi’s roads are getting increasingly hostile towards pedestrians – and it’s safe to say...

I come from Aotearoa/New Zealand, so it wasn’t till I came to ITM that I heard the term “South” referenced as a synonym for Poor/ Low Income/ Developing/ Not Europe. I am from the deepest South. But unlike many other countries in the Global South, New Zealand is not a poor country. It does have one thing in common with most of the others t...

As a Belgian citizen, I only follow the Brexit debate & US election campaign from a distance, I admit. Still, apart from the haircut of some of the protagonists, I see at least one other important similarity between these two high-profile political battles: too many people on the left will once again “settle” for the so called lesser evil, a...

Last week, my Facebook newsfeed was flooded with posts from friends and colleagues about the practice of public health in the Philippines and abroad. On one hand, my fellow Filipino friend Harvy Joy Liwanag, who is doing his PhD at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, noted in his FB wall the lack of ‘an influential group to represe...

This time, last year I logged on to WHO’s website to catch the proceedings of the 68th  World Health Assembly (WHA) online; I never in my wildest dream expected to find myself at the WHA69 in person! And yet, here I am, attending the WHA as an IHP Correspondent, navigating a calendar packed with more events and discussions than one can humanl...