Portuguese national healthcare system providers are not unfamiliar with a constant influx of new, temporary team members. These new members may be there for the whole day, the whole week, forever, or even for just a few hours, who knows? They are mostly junior, unspecialized doctors, earning plenty of money with very high hourly wages. These loc...

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a  current crisis that is claiming lives worldwide, with sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries being disproportionately affected. Since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in September 1928,  he warned that misuse could render antibiotics ineffective, leading to deaths from infections that were once treatable....

When I received confirmation to attend the Global Forum for Bioethics in Research in Ghana (18-19 Nov), I was thrilled, but also a bit anxious. At 26 weeks pregnant, traveling internationally and alone was not a decision everyone understood. “Can you travel during this time? Is it even allowed? How will you manage? Why now? Why alone? Take som...

Imagine some place on Colombia’s Pacific coast: an idyllic riverine community reachable only by boat, where the river is the main road, the rain sets the rhythm of the day, and the sound of the forest blends with the voices of the people. That’s where “María” lives. One day, during a hospital stay for a cardiovascular condition, she dev...

Global progress in maternal and child health continues to stall, not because solutions are unknown, but because health systems often overlook the environments in which women experience their pregnancies. Social stressors, limited support networks, gender inequalities, and poor nutrition exert a stronger influence on outcomes than any single clin...

On 6 October 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the prequalification of lenacapavir, a breakthrough long-acting injectable medicine for HIV prevention. The news was rapidly spread across general and specialized media. But a key question remains unaddressed: what does WHO prequalification really add for a medicine already approve...

At the 2025 World Health Summit (WHS) in Berlin, Traditional Medicine (TM) found a historic place in the global health dialogue. For the first time, dedicated sessions explored its role in advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and transforming how health systems connect with communities. My curiosity about how TM is gaining visibility at the...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. Combating this global epidemic requires combined actions against its five main health-related risk factors, namely, diabetes mellitus, HIV, smoking, undernutrition, and disorders due to alcohol use. I am particularly interested in the association of TB...

The World Health Summit (WHS) brings together political leaders, corporate executives, academics, global health agencies, entrepreneurs and start-ups, but rarely the communities most affected by the issues discussed. Panels in Berlin remain dominated by ministers, CEOs, and agency heads. Even if some progress has been made over the years, citiz...