ANALYSIS

In the GHM Controversial Issue Brief titled ‘How can we collaborate with Big Pharma in global health?‘, Nicolai Lohse writes:

The combination of pharmaceutical companies and global health invariably makes one think of the huge lack of access to medicine in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Drugs are either not affordable, not available at all, only available intermittently due to frequent pharmacy stock-outs, of poor quality, ineffective, or they are counterfeit and may even be unsafe.

 

Making quality medicine available, affordable, and accessible to all who need them is extremely complicated and requires a coordinated effort by many global health actors – including the pharmaceutical industry. In this need for collaborative solutions lies also the key to involving drug companies as a partner in global health.

Download the brief on Big Pharma.

Photo credit: Erling Høg

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WHO’s World Immunisation Week 2015 is launched today with the message “Close the immunization gap”. It draws attention to the Global Vaccine Action Plan and the 5 of 6 targets, which the world is not on track to achieve in 2015.

The message focuses on the 21.8 million infants – equal to 1 in 5 of the world’s infants – who do not receive the third diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine (DTP3). The message states that up to 3 million lives are being saved each year by vaccines while 1.5 million still die from vaccine preventable diseases.

But if we want to focus on child mortality, merely calculating the number of deaths caused and averted by vaccine preventable diseases and coverage of DTP3 is insufficient. Vaccines have more wide ranging effects than specific disease protection.

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“Universal Health Coverage can only lead to health and well-being for all, when it is accompanied by progress in the social determinants of health and through respect for and fulfillment of the human right to health”, argues Diederike Geelhoed in the Global Health Minders Emerging Issue Brief on Universal Health Coverage.

Download the brief on Universal Health Coverage.

Photo credit: Diederike Geelhoed

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To mark the International Women’s Day, we are happy to introduce an Emerging Issue Brief on Infertility. As the authors Siri Tellier and Josephine Obel write, infertility is not a new problem. However, in the last decade it has attracted increasing attention, focusing on three concerns:

1. A medical/clinical concern that an increasing number of couples are seeking Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR) and that some risk factors for infertility are increasing.
2. An economic/demographic concern regarding decreasing birth rates, leading to reduced labor force.
3. A human rights concern that couples have fewer children than they wish.

Download the brief here.

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When popular protest deposed former Burkinabé president Blaise Compaoré last year, many feared the country would see violent conflict. Lise Rosendal Østergaard argues that this was never inevitable. A sense of pragmatism evident in recent labour disputes shows that Burkinabés are more interested in getting on with their lives than turning to violence.

Photo credit: Göran Höglund Kartläsarn

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Until recently, menstrual hygiene has been a forgotten global health challenge even though there is evidence of serious negative impacts of poor menstrual hygiene on girls’ and women’s health, social lives and education. Supplying girls and women with proper methods and knowledge to manage their menstruations should be a major global health concern, underline authors Thilde Rheinländer and Mary Wachira in the Global Health Minders Emerging Issue Brief: Menstrual Hygiene: An ancient – but ignored Global Health problem of all women.

Photo credit: Erich Ogoso/IRIN

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