Drug procurement is “big money”. Naturally information follows money. But information also enables negotiations. This is particularly vital if you are a health ministry official trying to negotiate prices of medicines based on their patent status while procuring drugs. Although it exists, information around if and where a specific drug has b...

The importance and efficacy of community-based healthcare workers is a familiar refrain for those working in public health in LMICs. In South Africa, the efficacy of such workers is continuously acknowledged and shown, but unfortunately also systematically undermined by a fragmented state approach to these workers. Such a fragmented approach mea...

Digital technologies are often embraced as the solution to global challenges within health and development, but rampant commercialisation and weak regulation challenge the ideal of digital public goods capable of reducing inequalities. Techno-optimism Many express confidence that digital technologies available through mobile phone, tablets and ...

As I flew out from the Himalayan foothills into the country of a thousand hills, I thought about India and Rwanda. 1.3 billion fewer people live in Rwanda than in India. Rwanda is 125 times smaller than India. Rwandan Air flies to India. Rwanda is home to many Indians. The 2019 Women Leaders in Global Health conference   (WLGH 2019) was held i...

Attending the 4th Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Information (PPRI) Conference in Vienna last month (23-24 October), allowed the first author of this blog to revisit issues surrounding the unequal access to medicines, from the perspective of a health economist. Further discussion with the second author, a pharmacist highly concerned by...

  Last week, I attended the World health Summit (WHS) in Berlin, Germany, with 2400 participants and 300 speakers. With the abundance of exciting sessions scheduled over the three days (27-29 October), I was spoiled for choice. After some reflection, I managed to make up my mind, though, on which ones to attend. I didn’t end up disappointed! I...

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are major contributors to the disease burden and deaths globally. In the Asia Pacific and South Asia region too, rapid economic growth, demographic and societal transition in many countries have been accompanied by an epidemiological shift towards NCDs. Countries in South and South-East Asia have seen a 37.7% incr...

It was great to be back in Berlin, which I’ve always called “my intellectual city” since the first time I visited it in 2007. Its many streets and parks are named after some of Germany’s – and the world’s – greatest thinkers such as Karl Marx, Max Planck, Robert Koch, and of course, Rudolf Virchow, the Father of Social Medicine and...

Last week marked the annual  Canadian Conference on Global Health  (CCGH), bringing together academics, practitioners, and policy makers around the theme of governance – specifically, the power and politics that have become so characteristic of global health today. From October 17-19 ( with a side event on the 20th), the focus was on all cou...