09May 2023 by Melissa Slogan
Reflections following #IiHForum23

Reflections following #IiHForum23

Blog
Inspiring. To summarize the Innovations in Healthcare Annual Forum in one word: inspiring.   Despite a full agenda over the two-day conference, the energy in the room never dwindled. For the first time since 2019, stakeholders from across the healthcare ecosystem came together to share knowledge, discuss challenges, and explore solutions to some of the most pressing global health issues including:  Equitable access to quality care;  Infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness;  Antimicrobial resistance;  Integrated, innovative private sector approaches for addressing non-communicable diseases;  Trust in public health;  Innovation lessons from global pandemics;  Strengthening primary care as a foundation for resilient health systems and global health security;   The use of artificial intelligence to improve health and healthcare; and  Coordinated approaches to funding of health ventures in emerging markets.   The Innovations in Healthcare Annual Forum enables all voices to be heard. The event…
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30Mar 2023 by Melissa Slogan
COVID-19 Anguish Channeled into Survivor Support, Push for Better Pandemic Policies

COVID-19 Anguish Channeled into Survivor Support, Push for Better Pandemic Policies

Blog
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. March 30, 2023 By Nellie Bristol When Charonda Johnson’s 62-year-old father died from a COVID-19 infection in July, 2020, in addition to intense grief, she felt rage. A US Air Force Iraq war veteran, she was acutely attuned to early warnings about the unfolding pandemic and urged her family to take precautions. But the church her parents attended downplayed the threat, ignored mask mandates, and continued to hold regular services. Although, unlike the bulk of the congregation, her parents wore masks, they continued to attend services and church sponsored conferences, including those she later found out also were attended by some infected with COVID-19. “They were listening to the things that were being said in the media, listening to things they were hearing…
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09Mar 2023 by Melissa Slogan
UN High Level Pandemic Meeting Should Be Only the Beginning

UN High Level Pandemic Meeting Should Be Only the Beginning

Blog
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. March 9, 2023 By Nellie Bristol While negotiations continue at the World Health Organization (WHO) on a new pandemic accord and amendments to the International Health Regulations, plans also are evolving toward a UN high level meeting September 20 aimed at compelling health emergency preparedness to the top levels of government. While the meeting is critical to refocusing the world’s attention, establishing a mechanism to sustain long term political support is essential to successfully countering future threats. The High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPR) was called for in a UN resolution last year. Representatives for Israel and Morocco, who are co- facilitating the meeting’s preparatory process, set out a broad agenda in recently released  document as well as scheduling a hearing in May to get input from non-governmental…
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23Feb 2023 by Melissa Slogan
African Leaders Commit to Tackling Pandemic Fueled Routine Immunization Deficits

African Leaders Commit to Tackling Pandemic Fueled Routine Immunization Deficits

Blog
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. February 23, 2023 By Nellie Bristol In the face of falling routine immunization rates and recent spikes in some vaccine preventable diseases, African leaders pledged this week to “reignite the political will” to prioritize universal access to immunization through a declaration endorsed by African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government February 19. The declaration, entitled “Building Momentum for Routine Immunization Recovery in Africa,” commits governments to increasing and sustaining domestic investments in vaccines as well as addressing bottlenecks in vaccine delivery and improving disease surveillance. It invites African development banks, regional economic communities, and regional health organizations to increase resource mobilization and manufacturers to facilitate affordable access to vaccines and support technology transfer to African companies. It calls for an AU/World Health…
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10Feb 2023 by Melissa Slogan
Fatal Lack of Oxygen During Pandemic Peaks Spurs Action to End Enduring Shortages

Fatal Lack of Oxygen During Pandemic Peaks Spurs Action to End Enduring Shortages

Blog, News
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…
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25Jan 2023 by Melissa Slogan
Communicators Require New Approaches to Build Trust in Science and Public Health

Communicators Require New Approaches to Build Trust in Science and Public Health

Blog, News
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…
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12Jan 2023 by Melissa Slogan
High Level Health Emergency Council Proposed for WHO Executive Board Review

High Level Health Emergency Council Proposed for WHO Executive Board Review

Blog, News
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…
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12Dec 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Global Health Security Agenda Needs Stronger Core to Increase Effectiveness

Global Health Security Agenda Needs Stronger Core to Increase Effectiveness

Blog, News
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. December 12, 2022 By Nellie Bristol The Global Health Security Agenda launched in early 2014 as a bold attempt to jump start health emergency capacity building in low- and middle-income countries. Backed by the US government, the coalition of now nearly 70 countries with private sector and nongovernmental supporting organizations, urges increased attention and resources to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases. GHSA works primarily through Action Packages focused on specific issues such as biosafety and biosecurity, surveillance, or legal issues associated with preparedness. The GHSA provides a unique multisectoral forum for countries at all income levels to share lessons and experiences as they work toward compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR). Among its innovations, the GHSA developed the precursor to what became the…
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26Jun 2021 by kmitch@duke.edu
Press Release: Regional Action through Data (RAD)

Press Release: Regional Action through Data (RAD)

Blog
Press Release June 26, 2021. The Global Health Innovation Center and Innovations in Healthcare at Duke University have partnered with Broadreach, the InterGovernmental Authority Development (IGAD), the West Africa Health Organization (WAHO), Jembi Health Systems, and with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to address the problem of the limited use of data to drive performance in healthcare service delivery to improve health and development outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our goals and objectives of this project are: To address the problem of the limited use of data to drive decision making through the introduction of disruptive technologies To equip and empower key stakeholders to make data-based healthcare delivery decisions, through aligned and harmonized data collection systems that will be used by regional and national partners for evidence-based decision-making…
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17May 2021 by kmitch@duke.edu

Open Letter to the Biden Administration and US Congress Calling for Urgent High-Level US Leadership to Address Escalating Global COVID-19 Vaccine Crisis

Blog
The unprecedented wave of COVID-19 now engulfing India, Brazil, and other nations—and the extreme and widening global inequities in access to vaccines—test our collective conscience and threaten our national security. Worsening mass illness and deaths, a preventable humanitarian catastrophe, are destabilizing, and projected to increase. Urgent action is required to stem global circulation of the virus and the consequent inevitable emergence of new variants, which threaten to undermine Americans’ hard-fought but fragile vaccine immunity, putting lives and economic recovery at risk. President Biden has promised to restore American leadership abroad. The world is now in great need of high-level engagement that up to now has been conspicuously absent—to mitigate death and suffering in the short term, chart a sustained exit from the COVID-19 pandemic in the medium term, and insure…
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