Year: 2023

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. February 10, 2023 By Nellie Bristol Access to medical oxygen literally has been a matter of life and death during COVID-19 peaks and shortages have had devastating effects in many countries around the world. While specific data are difficult to come by, one study showed that vast under-resourcing in intensive care units in ten African countries contributed to high mortality rates, with one in two patients dying without receiving oxygen. In Peru, which reported the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world, at least 11 Lima hospitals reported shortages, people stood in long lines for bottled oxygen, and price gouging was rampant. In addition to its importance during the pandemic, medical oxygen is critical to treatment of struggling newborns, those with pneumonia, and a variety of…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. January 25, 2023 By Nellie Bristol Public health communicators need to change their approaches to ensure that those hesitant about vaccines “will adopt the desirable behavior and feel good about it,” said Michelle Williams, dean of faculty and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She appeared with other panelists January 18 at a World Economic Forum (WEF) roundtable on the State of the Pandemic. “The worst thing we did in the U.S. was when people expressed hesitancy or curiosity, we basically said to them, ‘follow the science.’ And that’s the absolute wrong thing to do,” Williams said. Instead, communicators need to “take the approach of meeting them where they are,” help them understand the risks and the benefits, and…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. January 12, 2023 By Nellie Bristol As health security improvement efforts continue at all governmental levels, World Health Organization (WHO) is advancing ten proposals aimed at strengthening its role and effectiveness in health emergency preparedness and response.  Originally introduced informally at last year’s World Health Assembly, the proposals are on the agenda for the WHO Executive Board (EB) meeting scheduled for late this month. Suggestions range from establishment of a Global Health Emergency Council, to improving national preparedness assessments, to increasing WHO funding to rapidly scale up response capacities. WHO leadership is asking the EB to note the report, provide guidance on how to work with Member States to move the proposals forward, and to identify any gaps. The proposed council is intended to ensure sustained high…