News Flash Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Wide-Eyed  Flounder (Bothus Podas)

News Flash 495

Weekly Snapshot of Public Health Challenges

 

EPHA (a)live at the WHO Europe Regional Committee meeting

How Hospital Monopolies Drive Up the Cost of Care

A Biomedical Innovation Agenda for Our Shared Global Health Future

Global Health’s Identity Crisis

South Africa can and must demand better deals for drug clinical trials — lives depend on it

UNITAID launches new strategy for 2023-2027

How COVID-19 shaped mental health: from infection to pandemic effects

How Bill Gates and partners used their clout to control the global Covid response — with little oversight

Shionogi and the Medicines Patent Pool Reach Agreement on COVID-19 Antiviral Pill

Gavi Urged to Buy At Least 30% of Vaccines From African Manufacturers

Some Coronaviruses Kill, While Others Cause a Common Cold. We Are Getting Closer to Knowing Why

Audio Interview: Infectious Disease in Africa

HIV prevention for the next decade: Appropriate, person-centred, prioritised, effective, combination prevention

National Data Show Continuing Disparities in Monkeypox (MPX) Cases and Vaccinations Among Black and Hispanic People

Ebola outbreak hits Uganda

UNGA 77: STOP TB HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED FOR ENDING TB

One World, One Health – Tackling the Superbug Challenge

NCDs are top global killer but trust fund coffers are empty

Documenting Pharma’s Role in the Opioid Crisis

At the UN General Assembly, calls for fairer global governance grow louder

HRR 649: IT IS NOT A SIGN OF GOOD HEALTH TO BE WELL ADAPTED TO A PROFOUNDLY SICK SOCIETY

Medicare eligibility and healthcare access, affordability, and financial strain for low- and higher-income adults in the United States: A regression discontinuity analysis

Our October Issue: Disability And Health

Better health around the corner? A rapid assessment of five national CAP strategic plans

Sign-on Letter to the IFC: Stop Financing Industrial Agriculture / Carta de adhesión a la Corporación Financiera Internacional (CFI) para Demandar Responsabilidad / Lettre de signature à la Société Financière Internationale (SFI) : Arrêtez de financer l’agriculture industrielle

Voices from the ground 2: transformative solutions to the global systemic food crises

The Oslo Declaration: unity will drive better alcohol policy

Advocates Mount New Initiative for WTO to Recognize ‘Public Goods’ in Trade Agreements – from Medicines to Forests

Rich countries’ aid to West Africa to cope with climate change is insufficient and dangerously worsening debt levels

STAND WITH ME, FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW: OXFAM petition

Natural disasters?

Jeff Bezos fund to push for Africa land restoration around U.N. climate summit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News Flash Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse (Coris Julis)

Painted Comber (Serranus Scriba)

News Flash 494

Weekly Snapshot of Public Health Challenges

 

How to cope with a world in crisis? MMI policy dialogues 2022 – 26-31 October 2022, as Zoom webinars

Webinar registration: PHM Reflections on Policy Developments on NCD control in WHA 75- 30th Sept, 1 PM UTC

One Health: A Paradigm Whose Time Has Come?

Fault Lines: Global Perspectives on a World in Crisis

International Geneva: missed opportunities, new possibilities

Liz Truss: friend or foe? …The jury is out

The U.S. Government and Global Health

Responsible dissemination of health and medical research: some guidance points

First patient dosed with HIV gene therapy

To Drive Equity In Monkeypox Response, States Should Learn From COVID-19

New recommendations for the composition of influenza vaccines in 2023 for the southern hemisphere

Covid-19 Cases in Africa

Long-term neurologic outcomes of COVID-19

Health Brief: Long TRIPS must come to an end

Malaria Eradication and Prevention through Innovation by Kirubel Workiye Gebretsadik 

Why We Need a New Grand Bargain for How the World Buys Antibiotics

How Public Health Can Stem the STI Epidemic

Hepatitis C elimination: why prisoners’ health must be revalued

Prevention and treatment of infectious diseases in migrants in Europe in the era of universal health coverage

HRR 648: DECLARING A RIGHT IS NOT ENOUGH WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT

A World of One Billion Empty Plates

Small number of huge companies dominate global food chain, study finds

People’s Health Dispatch: Bulletin #34: A festival of solidarity and struggle

Global gendered impacts of the Ukraine crisis on energy access and food security and nutrition

Who is responsible for the deaths of children at EU borders?

Horn of Africa drought puts 3.6m children at risk of dropping out of school

Fuel makers blast EU focus on electric vehicles amid energy crisis

L’ALLEVAMENTO INTENSIVO È ENERGIVORO, LE ONG: L’UE STACCHI LA SPINA

India’s Toxic Air Set to Continue as New Punjab Leaders Fail to Control Farm Fires

Air Pollution is Linked to Adverse Brain Development in Young Children

German citizens sue government for right to breathe clean air

Member states slam Commission’s plans to slash pesticide use

Opinion: World Bank and MDBs must show proactive climate leadership

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A reflection here on WHO-led key initiatives to protect pregnant women and children against the scourge of malaria in underserved low- and middle-income countries

By Kirubel Workiye Gebretsadik

Medical Doctor and Master of Public Health student 

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

 Malaria Eradication and Prevention through Innovation

 

 

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites of the plasmodium group, spread through the bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. Though a preventable and curable disease, malaria is a huge burden for sub-saharan African nations. Approximately 92% of malaria cases and 93% of malaria deaths are within low- and middle-income countries.

At the seventh replenishment conference for the Global Fund to combat AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in New York, which was hosted by US president Joe Biden, governments from all around the world contributed a record US $14.25 billion. Over 45 nations attended the meeting, including governments, international partners, the commercial sector, and civil society organizations. Significant strides have been made in the fight against malaria since the global fund was established in 2002; it is predicted that interventions funded by the global fund prevented a 70% increase in malaria cases. Nevertheless, almost two decades later, there are still 241 million cases of malaria worldwide. Africa is heavily burdened by it. https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/fight-for-what-counts/

Malaria infection during pregnancy is a major public health problem. Pregnancy-related malaria infection can result in life-threatening consequences, such as severe anemia in the mother, low birth weight in the baby, or even stillbirth or death. In addition to using insecticide-treated mosquito nets and ensuring efficient case management of malaria and anemia in pregnant women, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended in 2012 giving pregnant women at least three doses of the antimalarial drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) to significantly lower the risk of malaria infection. Data revealed that millions of women were still being overlooked despite this guidance. https://www.afro.who.int/publications/who-policy-brief-implementation-intermittent-preventive-treatment-malaria-pregnancy

Jhpiego is the project’s leader, and it is referred to as intermittent preventative therapy in pregnancy (IPTp). Through the use of skilled health extension program officers, this study sought to find out by providing malaria prophylaxis to women in their homes. It had the belief that it could close care gaps and open doors to more health services for millions of women. This flexible community-led strategy has been successful in 2021 in reaching 80% of the targeted pregnant women. This strategy has provided at least three doses of SP through community interventions, protecting approximately 100,000 pregnant women against malaria. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23403684

SP is also successful in protecting infants against anemia and malaria. As a result, WHO also suggests intermittent preventive therapy in infants (IPTi-SP). https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-IVB-11.07

IPTi-SP is the administration of a full therapeutic course of SP delivered through the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) at intervals corresponding to routine vaccination schedules for the second and third doses of DTP/Penta3, and measles vaccination — usually at 8-10 weeks, 12-14 weeks, and ~9 months of age — to infants at risk of malaria. It is anticipated that the Population Service International (PSI)-led IPTi project will produce data to encourage the broad adoption of an effective but underutilized preventive strategy that, if scaled up, could prevent 6.7 million cases of malaria and anemia in children under two by 2030. https://www.psi.org/news/ipti-plus/

Let us work together on the WHO global target for malaria 2016-2030.

 

By the same Author on PEAH

ONE HEALTH ONE WORLD 

Social Innovation in Healthcare

 

News Flash Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Wrasse (Labrus)

News Flash 493

Weekly Snapshot of Public Health Challenges

 

WHO at the high-level session of the 77th UN General Assembly (UNGA)

Informal, focused consultations (IFCs) on WHO’s pandemic treaty to address: 1) legal matters, 2) equity, 3) IP and access to pandemic response products, and 4) One Health, AMR, Climate and Zoonosis

Global Fund is Still Short of Billions Ahead of Crucial Pledging Conference

Dimensionality of criticality in HPSR and global health: Thoughts from 2022 Emerging Voices for Global Health Fellows

Rethinking Humanitarianism | ‘No regrets’: Peter Maurer on 10 years as ICRC president

Moderna Gives WHO’s mRNA Hub Some Help, Pfizer Snubs Request

EMA recommends standard marketing authorisations for Comirnaty and Spikevax COVID-19 vaccines

A Bivalent Omicron-Containing Booster Vaccine against Covid-19

‘Massive COVID-19 failure’ sets back global development

WHO responds to The Lancet COVID-19 Commission

Innovative Financing to Protect Public Health During a Pandemic

Learning from Different Nations’ Experiences with COVID-19: Models of Public Inquiry, Methods to Globally Network

Closing the Public Health Ethics Gap

To Meet Global HIV Prevention Goals, Expand The PEPFAR-FDA Tentative Approval Pathway

The unknown efficacy of tecovirimat against monkeypox

Gutter to gut: How antimicrobial-resistant microbes journey from environment to humans

Answering the Challenges Posed by Antimicrobial Resistance

Medicines Patent Pool and MedinCell sign license deal to fight malaria

‘Best yet’ malaria vaccine developers eye 2023 rollout

MSF warns that supply delays of critical TB test will cost lives

NCDs in Ghana Spark Caution, Policy Shifts

Heads of State commit to Noncommunicable Disease Global Compact to save 50 million lives by 2030

Curbing the cost of sickle cell disease in Africa

European Health Union: A new EU approach on cancer detection – screening more and screening better

Climate adaptation ‘critical’ for Africa

Protecting Pregnant People and Babies from the Health Effects of Climate Change

Low-Carbon Health Care Done Right

Parliament backs e-fuels, higher EU transport decarbonisation target

Denmark becomes first to offer ‘loss and damage’ climate funding

The Green Brief: Europe’s failed ‘grand bargain’ on energy

Global crises fuel rise in modern slavery, report finds

Jailed and Pregnant: What the Roe Repeal Means for Incarcerated People

Hunger now killing one person every four seconds, NGOs say

Extreme hunger soaring in world’s climate hotspots, says Oxfam

 

 

 

 

News Flash Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Amberjacks (Seriola Dumerili)

News Flash 492

Weekly Snapshot of Public Health Challenges

 

What are the priorities for the new UK prime minister?

The UK’s Trade and Development agenda can help tackle global inflation and the cost of living crisis

Dr Luis Pizarro becomes new Executive Director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative

Need to review proposed health financing model

Outcomes-Based Approaches to Health Care Finance Can Address Unmet Needs

WHO: Public hearings regarding a new international instrument on pandemic preparedness and response

UN Approves High-Level Pandemic Summit

ECDC-EMA statement on booster vaccination with Omicron adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccines

Why Paxlovid is still not available in many LMICs

New Initiative Will Enable Speedy Introduction of COVID-19 Antivirals in Africa and Southeast Asia

Commission urges bloc to act now in preparation for COVID-19 winter surge

Audio Interview: Covid-19 and the WHO

Chengdu, Chinese city of 21m, has Covid lockdown extended indefinitely

Covid-19 and the Global South by Christiane Fischer

Back to School: COVID, CDC Guidance, Monkeypox, and More

Intradermal Vaccination for Monkeypox — Benefits for Individual and Public Health

After smallpox, can other diseases be eradicated?

The Polio Outbreak and What Needs to Be Done To Eradicate the Virus Globally

A Breakthrough Tuberculosis Treatment Just Got Safer

Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings

HRR 645 RIGHTS OF NATURE: WE NEED AN ATTITUDE THAT IS MORE BIOCENTRIC (OR ECOCENTRIC OR GAIACENTRIC) ROOTED IN THE CONCEPT OF ‘ONENESS’

‘Health Too’ by Women in Global Health

Healthy workplaces for a healthy living

The importance of Community Mental Health for refugees

244M children won’t start the new school year (UNESCO)

Five Things to Look for at the UN’s Transforming Education Summit

Smoking control in China: A need for comprehensive national legislation

Fertiliser stranglehold in Africa

Air Pollution Kills Millions Every Year: Action Needed

Pakistan floods pose urgent questions over preparedness and climate reparations

Large parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says

Rich nations to fund 80% of S.Africa’s climate plan with loans, some hard to unlock

What is COP27?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are the effects of the Covid measures on people from southern and northern countries? Are these more positive or more negative for the world's poor? How are you politically classified? The following article seeks to answer these questions by evaluating the impact of common interventions on individual and global health, as well as social impacts

By Dr. med. Christiane Fischer

Chairwoman, PHM Deuteschland

 Covid-19 and the Global South

 

Vaccinations

At the individual level all vaccines are positive! The resistance to vaccination, which is mainly found in rich countries, seems unfounded. The vaccinations have no more side effects than any other vaccinations and, as with other vaccinations, long-term effects have not been described.

On a global level, there is a massive problem that people, especially from poor African countries, have insufficient access. While in Germany the vaccination rate on August 31, 2022 was 76.2% of the population, in Burkina Faso it was only 8.1%. India has a vaccination rate of 73%, as the vaccines are produced in the country by its own Indian pharmaceutical companies and are therefore accessible to the entire population. [i]  Unfortunately, India cannot export them due to the existing patent law in many African countries. Therefore, they do not benefit the poor, especially in African countries. A main reason for the lack of access for poor countries without their own pharmaceutical industry is massively inflated prices, which are usually caused by unnecessary patent protection. Globally, 67.7% of people worldwide have been vaccinated at least once, but as is almost always the case, the vaccine is distributed very unfairly between the rich who swim in vaccine and the poor who at best have miserable access. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 34 countries have rates below 10%.[ii]

On October 2, 2020, South Africa and India applied to the World Trade Organization to temporarily suspend patent protection for all products necessary to prevent, contain and treat Covid-19. In the language of the WTO, such an exemption is called a “TRIPS Waiver”. As of October 2020, over 100 governments have endorsed the TRIPS Waiver. After 18 months of negotiations, a document has been made public that is described as a possible compromise between the EU, the USA, South Africa and India. However, the text in no way corresponds to the original proposal tabled by India and South Africa. The compromise proposal is too narrow and does not provide sufficient measures for equal access to Covid-19 technologies. It does not represent a simplification but a complication of the necessary conditions for Covid-19 technologies. [iii]

Testing

The sensitivity of tests is only 40%, as evaluated by the German professional association of paediatricians (BVKJ). The number of false-negative and false-positive results is unacceptably high and would do more harm than good, so the conclusion. The isolation and quarantine measures and school closures associated with the tests have led to schools in particular, and thus the education of children and young people, being massively disrupted. [iv] Therefore, testing without cause, be it with rapid antigen tests or PCR pool tests, is currently and probably not justifiable for the further course of the pandemic. This should also apply to nursing homes, clinics and other facilities, as the example of Switzerland shows, which abolished all corona measures in February and does not have a higher incidence than Germany. [v]

On the other hand, there are fears that are triggered by tests and cannot be justified in view of the lack of sensitivity. In addition, a large amount of waste is caused by tests.

Masks

In the debate about the new Infection Protection Act, the German Professional Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) spoke out against compulsory masks for schoolchildren in autumn and winter, because studies would show that masks tend to postpone infections. [vi]

At the same time, people who consistently and correctly wear mouth and nose protection indoors in public had a significantly reduced risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 in a case control study by the California health authority. [vii]

Consequently, a weighing of interests must take place here between protecting others and protecting yourself, your own body awareness and the right not to wear a mask yourself. The fact that people can effectively protect themselves with a mask should not be an obligation, but only a recommendation.

From an ecological point of view, masks create a lot of waste. A lot of resources are used for mask production that are missing in other areas. These reasons also speak against a mask requirement.

Lockdowns

The societal impact of lockdowns far outweighs the health benefits they have produced.[viii] This is especially true for the poor in southern countries. If, for example, people do not have money to drive the bus to a treatment center for tuberculosis or AIDS due to lockdowns, this causes more resistance and deaths in poor countries. [ix] Other measures such as curfews have generally been controversial due to a lack of evidence.

Conclusion

Vaccinations are the most effective measure to combat the pandemic in the long term. In order for everyone to have access to vaccinations, it is necessary to suspend patents on vaccines, medicines and diagnostics. The aim of progressive politics and health policy is to fight poverty worldwide. This is central in the case of the Covid-19b pandemic. All measures must therefore be measured against this. The effects of the other Covid-19 measures are particularly problematic for people from countries in the south (but also in the north) and for ecological reasons. The focus must be on action that serves in the poor and fights poverty globally. This is only possible with patent-free access. Therefore, our commitment to off-patent vaccines, medicines and diagnostics should be stepped up so that global justice can emerge.

 

References

[i] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL

[ii] https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/covax

[iii] https://www.aerzte-ohne-grenzen.de/sites/default/files/2022-04/Factsheet%20TRIPS%20Waiver%20Kompromiss.pdf

[iv] https://www.bvkj.de/politik-und-presse/nachrichten/264-2022-08-29-stellungnahme-anhoerung-covid-19-schutzgesetz

[v] https://www.corona-in-zahlen.de/weltweit/schweiz/

[vi] https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/kinderaerzte-grundsaetzlich-gegen-maskenpflicht-in-schulen-tests-corona-jakob-maske-li.255030

[vii] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm

[viii] https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/did-covid-lockdowns-work-heres-what-we-know-two-years

[ix] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abd1072

 

By the same author on PEAH

Access to Corona Vaccination only for the Rich 

Action Alliance “Training 2020” – An Alliance for Independent Continuing Medical Education

Corrupt Medical Practices in Germany

Interview: MEZIS (Mein Essen zahl ich selbst – I pay for my own lunch)

 

News Flash Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Salema fish (Salpa Salpa)

News Flash 491

Weekly Snapshot of Public Health Challenges

 

The call for abstracts EECA INTERACT 2022 is open. Please, apply!

Webinar registration: CSO DG dialogue on climate and health Sep 5, 2022 02:00 PM in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna

First adapted COVID-19 booster vaccines recommended for approval in the EU

US Food and Drug Administration Approves Omicron-Targeting COVID-19 Boosters for Fall

Scientists question Moderna invention claim in COVID-19 vaccine dispute: Company sues rivals Pfizer and BioNTech over mRNA technology

India pitches for special WTO meet to expand scope of Covid IP waiver

Poor Vaccines Coverage in Pandemic Blamed on Multiple Barriers

Research characterizes clinical and epidemiologic features of SARS-CoV-2 in pets

Novel Coronaviruses Are Riskiest for Spillover

Primary Care Beyond COVID-19

WHO Lists Entities That Can Engage with Pandemic Treaty Negotiating Body

Why We Need A Pandemic Treaty Built For Accountability & Financial Assistance To Countries That Need It

The New Abnormal by Brian Johnston

Access (or not) to vaccines for monkeypox in Africa: a sense of déjà vu?

Substandard and falsified antibiotics: neglected drivers of antimicrobial resistance?

Reflections on research ethics in a public health emergency: Experiences of Brazilian women affected by Zika

Principles for Access to Multi-disease Molecular Diagnostics

WHO product review process needs better clarity: External report

Half of health care facilities globally lack basic hygiene services – WHO, UNICEF

A Message From Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation – GER Rwanda by Innocent Musore 

European towns exchange good practices to boost migrants’ integration

The Reality of Ethics and the Role of Disruptive Technologies in the Medical Data Industry: How Do They Align? by Tomas Mainil  

Reimagining human rights in global health: what will it take?

The Berlin Wall Between Welfare and Health in Iran: Who Gains the Health Subsidies? by Manal Etemadi

Africa’s water woes ‘driving up food prices’ 

Is There Any Point Defining a ‘Climate Migrant’?

A “hierarchy of suffering” exacerbates asylum seekers’ mental health in Lithuania

What Satellite Data Can (And Can’t) Tell Us About Climate-Affected Migration 

 ONE HEALTH ONE WORLD by Kirubel Workiye Gebretsadik 

‘Time has run out’: UN fails to reach agreement to protect marine life

Commission adopts new rules to fastrack approval of biological pesticides

Latin America Looks to COP27: ‘The Time to See Ourselves Only as Climate Victims is Over’

When open letters work: publication of the EU proposal on pollution emission standards for vehicles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find a message here by Innocent Musore, Executive Director Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation-GER Kigali City, Rwanda, as a reminder of GER-Rwanda 2022 field engagement and practices. We are pleased to post and circulate it as a follow-up to Improving Communities’ Livelihood, Healing and Reconciliation in Rwanda PEAH published by the same author on February this year

By Innocent Musore

Executive Director

Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation-GER

Kigali City, Rwanda

A Message From Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation – GER Rwanda

 

Welcome to GER!

Since 2015, Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation (GER) –a Non-Governmental Organization ,  whose Vision is to see people living in harmony with themselves and the environment , with a Mission to support the process of peace building and community development in Rwanda, and the Great Lakes region has  actively been a peacebuilding and development organization.

We work with communities and stake holders, community based organizations to facilitate conflicts transformation and ecosystem conservation with a keen focus to empower women and youth to become agents of change.  We facilitate interactions with people of all walks of life, including; survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and perpetrators to reconcile and recover from collective trauma and historical wounds.

We facilitate community knowledge exchange and intergenerational learning dialogues that help environmental reconciliation and conservation initiatives to secure food system by Agroecoly farming. This includes and is not limited to testimonies and story-telling.

The beneficiaries should know how to cultivate their land so that it becomes and remains fertile to the future generations, even in times of climate change. Our aim is to raise community awareness so that people are sensitized to become better informed and enlightened about how our actions impact the environment and the associated ecosystems.

We are thus able to understand not only the impact of our decisions and actions, but also learn how to anticipate these changes before they occur and act in such a way as to protect our natural environment which allow us to live in harmony with nature. We work with communities to improve ecosystem conservation and climate resilience.

Our interventions are in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) particularly in the Eastern part of North Kivu, where communities have been affected by ethnic conflicts and violence, famine, disease as well as extreme poverty. Principally, working with communities has enabled us to learn much from their experiences and program interventions, hence meeting their needs already identified in the communities.  We believe that change is possible when communities are empowered and supported to take full ownership and engage in their own home-grown community development initiatives. Noteworthy, community-based approach permits changes from individuals to families, community members and societal levels.

To that end, we therefore invite individuals with tangible ideas and good will from various organizations, foundations and development partner to support this noble cause of restoring trust and regional integration.

For more information www.globalr.org, our social media: https://twitter.com/GER_Global, https://web.facebook.com/GERRwanda, https://www.instagram.com/ger_global250.

Thank you!

 

 

 

Technical innovation in globalized health systems seems to become the future pandemic in our current time frame. Disruptive technologies can be used for the good and the bad. This research letter wants to pinpoint the landscape of choices in which medical doctors and other medical professions need to balance the trade in health services with their ethical stance and commitment to nurture and treat patients

By Dr. Tomas Mainil

Phd, Ma, Msc, PD, Senior Lecturer/Researcher and strategic policy analyst, Breda University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. Mainil.t@buas.nl

 

 The Reality of Ethics and the Role of Disruptive Technologies in the Medical Data Industry: How Do They Align?

 

Innovative technologies such as Digital Twins, AI and Blockchain are currently changing the way of working in the medical industries, which probably will lead to early adaptors versus businesses which will react to late in this technological battle for the patient. (Nam et al., 2021) point out that smart destinations are beginning to embrace blockchain solutions, which could result in different business practices. According to (Gossling, 2021) we have arrived in the stage of usurpation with regards to ICT adoption in the tourism industry. This is certainly also true for the structure present in the health space worldwide. It will generate new room for imagination to envision the future (Xiang, 2018). So, we need to assess if the application of these technologies are influencing: mutual understanding between health management levels and professionals, Individual fulfillment, Sustainable development, Stakeholder obligations, Right to health care, Liberty for medical movements and finally the rights for health workers in the medical industry.

Each of these ethical perspectives will be touched by the usage and implementation of these technologies. We want to analyze for each of these principles what the positive and negative relationships are with the continuous development of these technologies. This technological shift will be in need of anti-disciplinary thinking, embarking on new paradigms and mindsets (Sigala, 2018).

In the near future disruptive technologies will change the medical industry rapidly and without taken into account workforce, sustainable communities and hosting places and geographic sensitive environments. In the distant future AI and the development of synergetic systems of supervised machine learning will replace human activities and ways of acting in general societies and how these societies will be organized: technology at the front of destructive innovation or technology and AI for the good of society, the citizens in those societies, and last but not least technology which will create a shift in the trade-off between the elite and endangered communities all over this planet.

So, to humbly conclude: do we want as a globalized civil system to sustain our medical apparatus and the planet; or do we want to perish, and is this current time frame the advent of not being able to provide future generations what our ancestors understood better: to simply live in a harmonic system, rather than to enslave our own past and future. Urgently, but at the same time without any political and policy speeding up processes, we have – without debate – arrived at the bones of our current society.

Without solutions and actions from inside our outside the medical profession, no globalized sustainable health system will arise. But in the end, these disruptive technologies can enhance the sustainable character and the ratio of the healthcare sector: to make the right choices and finding the right equilibrium between human striving and technological innovation. (Putera et al., 2022) show evidence in Indonesia, where technology, policies and health care delivery are coinciding.  Possibly and hopefully this will deliver stuctural results or solutions.

 

The author has no conflicting interests

 

References 

Nam, K., Dutt, C.S., Chathoth, P. & Khan M.S. (2021). Blockchain technology for smart city and smart tourism: latest trends and challenges, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 26(4), 454-468.

Gössling, S. (2021). Tourism, technology and ICT: a critical review of affordances and concessions, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(5), 733-750.

Putera B.P., Widianingsih, I., Ningrum, S., Suryanto, S., Rianto, Y.(2022). Overcoming the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia: A Science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy perspective, Health Policy and Technology,11(3) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2022.100650.

Xiang, Z. (2018). From digitization to the age of acceleration: On information technology and tourism, Tourism Management Perspectives, 25, 147-150.

Sigala, M. (2018). New technologies in tourism: From multi-disciplinary to anti-disciplinary advances and trajectories, Tourism Management Perspectives, 25, 151-155.

Some smart reflections here on the overarching importance of not to be postponed ONE HEALTH ONE WORLD mindset in today’s planetary arena at the intersection of human, animal and environmental contexts

By Kirubel Workiye Gebretsadik

Medical Doctor and Master of Public Health student 

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

ONE HEALTH ONE WORLD

 

There is a health day on November 3. This day is meant to honor and draw attention to the idea of “one health, one globe.”

Animal health, and shared environmental health are all directly related to human health.

One health is a transdisciplinary, multisectoral, and collaborative strategy. In addition to addressing health issues, including the rise of infectious illnesses, antibiotic resistance, and food safety, collaboration across sectors and disciplines also helps to promote the health and integrity of our ecosystems. One Health, according to WHO, may cover the complete spectrum of disease control, from prevention to detection, readiness, response, and management, and contribute to global health security by tying humans, animals, and the environment together.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, commented on one health, saying: “We need to develop a more thorough and integrated one health governance framework at the global level. We require a capable labor force, a political commitment, and ongoing financial support. To bring about the change we need, we must adopt a more proactive communication and engagement strategy across sectors, disciplines, and communities.

Since agriculture and farming technologies permitted humans to dwell in sedentary communities, near their livestock and crops, diseases have been emerging at the human-animal interface. Over 85% of Africans still rely on agriculture and livestock breeding. As a result, the conversation is still ongoing. Deforestation is becoming more widespread in emerging nations due to a growing population and a lack of agricultural land. As a result, people and wild creatures come into proximity.

According to information from the World Health Organization, 75% of newly discovered or developing infectious diseases are zoonotic, and 60% of all infectious diseases reported in humans have an animal origin. The COVID-19 pandemic, avian influenza, swine influenza, monkeypox, and antibiotic resistance are all excellent teaching tools for our society about the importance of collaborating across human, animal, and environmental health.

According to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, COVID-19 would cost the US $16 trillion. What about in developing countries? Therefore we have to speak loud ONE HEALTH ONE WORLD.

 

By the same Author on PEAH

Social Innovation in Healthcare