Our Blog Analyses, news and events

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Meeting: Ebola and Development

A meeting Ebola and Development: The reality of causes and consequences of Ebola in West Africa takes place in Copenhagen on Wednesday May 27, at 17.00-21.00. The meeting will discuss why Ebola attracted such international attention, when the number of death after all is relatively small compared, e.g., to the about 6,500 children dying every day from vaccine preventable diseases? The meeting will also talk about the lessons learned from the outbreak and how future threats from Ebola across the complex urban and rural landscapes that now define modern Africa be managed?

Global Health Minders chairman Morten Sodemann is one of the speakers at the event. He will contextualize the recent Ebola outbreak within the overall public health picture in Africa, the international health regulations, and the social determinants of the disease

Read more at IUG’s website.

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World Immunization Week 2015

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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Global Health Themes

In addition to the Emerging Issue Briefs and Controversial Issue Briefs, Global Health Minders has also published a number of broader briefing papers and background articles on selected cross-cutting global health issues that we think need more attention.

These papers are collected in a separate section ‘Global Health Themes’ and include briefing papers on Non-Communicable Diseases, Primary Health Care and mHealth and three background articles: the first one analysing ‘Public Health in Post-Conflict States’, the second one exploring what ‘Global Health’ means, and the last one debating whether we should prioritise ‘Education or Health’.

Have you not found them yet? Here is the link.

Photo credit: Morten Sodemann

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Link: Training young scientists should be prioritized

In the recent blog post at plos.org, co-Editor in Chief of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases Serap Aksoy underlines the importance of investing in the next generation of scientist who will ensure the sustainability of the progress made on the Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Read the article “Training the Next Generation of Scientists from Disease Endemic Countries Should be a High Priority in Disease Elimination Efforts” at plos.org.

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Happy World Health Day!

7 April is the World Health Day and it falls on the birthday of the World Health Organization (WHO). The theme for the World Health Day 2015 is food safety, declaring that Everyone, everywhere needs safe food, free from microbes, viruses and chemicals.

You can read more about pesticides in the GHM Emerging Issue Brief. The author Erik Jørs writes that the pesticides are responsible for millions of human poisonings and hundreds of thousands deaths each year.

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Photo credit: Erik Jørs

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GHM Emerging Issue Brief: Universal Health Coverage

“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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