The weekly International Health Policies (IHP) newsletter is a flagship knowledge management activity of the IHP network, funded by the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD)  and produced out of ITM Antwerp. The IHP network aims to “empower committed groups of global health experts based in the Glob...

As we see women taking up leadership positions around us, we often feel that we have come a long way in terms of achieving gender equality! It is only when one sees the startling facts around female representation that one realizes how much work remains to be done.  Women hold only a quarter of global health leadership positions, while 75% of he...

Community engagement is key to the sustained success of  public health and social measures (PHSMs) in response to outbreaks. As witnessed during the Covid pandemic (among others), public health and social measures are a key strategy to reduce the transmission of pathogens with epidemic or pandemic potential. The pandemic also reminded us of the ...

On 20th September 2022, the Uganda Ministry of Health (MOH), together with the World Health Organization declared an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) due to Sudan ebolavirus in Mubende District, after one fatal case was confirmed. The index case was a 24-year-old man, a resident of Ngabano village of Madudu sub-county in Mubende District. T...

After talking for some hours with this guy, the one with the “candy”- emoji (🍬) in his profile, we decided to see each other at his house to play some video games. With the talk, the euphoria of the gameplay, and the chemistry, things began to flow. Our lips were getting closed, our hands were discovering each other, when suddenly he took ou...

Over the past four decades the world has seen the privatisation of health and other social services. Stemming from the ‘Structural Adjustment Programmes’ that the IMF, World Bank and other international financial institutions imposed on countries of the Global South, as well as the attacks on unions and other democratic avenues for social ac...

The Covid pandemic has taught us once again that good governance and leadership in health are critical ingredients of resilient health systems. Often, governance is misconstrued as a sole responsibility of the government and civil society. However, that is only part of the story, as citizen engagement and meaningful participation, by electing co...

A featured article published in this space on December 19, 2022 was called ‘Confronting the uncomfortable: Emerging voices’ reflections after a talk on decolonization‘. In it, eight EV’s who in Medellín had attended the Face-to-Face part of the EV 2022 venture reflected on a talk on decolonisation I delivered there at Antioquia Universi...

Opioid analgesics are essential medicines, needed for treating acute and chronic pain. Morphine, methadone, hydromorphone, oxycodone, codeine and fentanyl are all listed in the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines. However, being “attractive” for illicit use and abuse, they are also listed as “controlled substances” under the Single Co...