We live in a time when many infectious diseases have known treatments, and as such, some public health units are starting to focus on non-communicable diseases (NCDs). One group of NCDs which are prevalent in developing nations are respiratory diseases. The CDC says that 11% of deaths in Tanzania are caused by lower respiratory infections […]
Lancet pricks the finger and blood streams out. A tiny glass pipette sucks a drop – 5 microliters to be exact. Blood is dropped in the sample well and two drops of solution in the buffer well. Now begins the twenty minute wait. This is the Malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (mRDT). The lab technicians at […]
It was on the 4th of July, 2017, two days after landing in Zanzibar, that the PGHT team first visited Mnazi Mmoja Hospital (MMH), the only tertiary government hospital serving the entire island. The focus for the day was a visit to the maternity ward and a meeting local clinicians. A big white board with […]
The recent development of the “superbug” poses a new global health challenge this year. In the summer of 2016, a women returned home to Nevada with a strange bacterial infection that she acquired while in India. Her doctors end up prescribing her a total of 26 different antibiotics, encompassing all of the ones available today, […]
The World Health Organization released that as of 2016, diabetes was the leading cause of death in Mexico, being responsible for with 14.7% of Mexico’s deaths and thus seizing over 76,000 lives that year. The percent of the population that died to diabetes has tripled since 1990, and by 2050, scientists predict that half of […]
Gender matters: we can’t deny that it affects almost every aspect of health. Worldwide, inequities in access to healthcare, education, and social rights have led women to experience a disproportionate burden of disease and death. Yet, leadership in the global health sector is highly skewed towards men and it would be both irresponsible and foolish […]
The international community is at a cross roads. Syria has been plagued with a civil war since the Arab Spring in 2011. Since then, the country has witnessed mass killings and serious destruction to infrastructure and is showing no signs of slowing down. Unfortunately, as is the case in all wars, many of the casualties […]
On October 3rd, 2015, a Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Trauma center was bombed during an airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Ten patients and twelve staff members were killed at the facility – the only medical center operating in north-east Afghanistan that treated all people in need of trauma care regardless of political affiliation and ethnicity. MSF […]
Multiple teams of virus hunters have been on a mission, scouring our planet’s rainforests to discover previously unknown viruses that carry the potential of transforming into pandemics. It is all part of a $200 million project called PREDICT, part of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) program. The PREDICT program was launched 2009 in an effort […]
Within the United States, it is common to hear about diabetes as a leading public health issue. What may come as a surprise is the fact the diabetes is becoming more and more significant throughout low income countries. According to World Health Organization, in Africa the prevalence of diabetes in adults has increased more than […]