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Global Health Justice

Tag: global south

Global Health Justice Team’s Statement on the Rapid Support Forces’ Massacre of Civilians in Al-Fasher, Sudan

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Like many of you, we the Global Health Justice (GHJ) team have seen the heart-wrenching images and videos of torture, forced starvation and murder of innocent Sudanese coming out of Al-Fasher over the past few days. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who are directly being funded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a “Major Defense Partner” of the U.S., have invaded the city after laying siege on it for over 18 months. We’ve seen the videos of young children being…

Centrafrique: Humanitarian Priorities Must Be Based on Need, Not Geopolitics

Post categories: Structural Violence Post tags:
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CAR

The ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) remains one of the world’s most underreported and neglected emergencies. In 2022, CAR recorded one of the highest national crude mortality rates globally (55 deaths per 1,000 people), exceeding that of Ukraine, yet the crisis continues to receive minimal international attention. United Nations (UN) data suggest that there is no health emergency in CAR. This silence and lack of reliable information reflects a troubling pattern: the Global North’s selective visibility…

Moving Beyond Allyship in the Decolonization of Global Health

Post categories: Decolonization Post tags:
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The University of Washington School of Public Health’s Alison Wiyeh, MD, MSc (PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology with a concentration in public policy and management) and Ferdinand Mukumbang, PhD, MS (Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health) recently published a correspondence in The Lancet, “Global South leaders should strengthen strategic capacity“. The commentary describes the limitations of relying on Global North allyship in the decolonization of global health. Wiyeh and Mukumbang’s argument is particularly salient following current…

Malawi and Mali Demand Unpaid Taxes and Royalties from Multinationals

Post categories: Global Theft Tax Evasion Post tags:
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BBC news recently reported that the governments of Malawi and Mali are demanding hundreds of billions of dollars from U.S.- and Australia-based multinationals to compensate for unpaid taxes and royalties over the past 10 years. Charles Gitonga and Andre Lombard report that the Malawi government has accused Colombia Gem House, U.S.-based gemstone company, of not paying fairly for rubies exported over the last 10 years. The government is also demanding $4 billion from French gas giant TotalEnergies in unpaid revenue…

Kenya’s protests: The violent cost of IMF debt

Post categories: Global Theft Structural Adjustment Policies Post tags:
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Peaceful protestors in Kenya against Finance Bill 2023.

Recent demonstrations against Kenya’s Finance Bill 2024 were met with deadly repression. At least 39 civilians were killed and hundreds injured by Kenyan police while protesting the proposed 346 billion Kenyan shillings ($2.6 billion) tax increase. This Bill was intended to generate government revenue, a condition of the $2.34 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) 38-month loan issued to Kenya in April 2021. The proposed tax levies would have increased the price of basic commodities including bread, sugar, and car petroleum,…

Decolonizing must challenge globalized systems of wealth extraction and profiteering.

Post categories: Decolonization Post tags:
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The authors of a February 2024 Bulletin of the World Health Organization article call for global health actors to challenge current forms of corporate and financialized colonialism that operate through globalized systems of wealth extraction and profiteering. They note that most of the current narrative on decolonization focuses on correcting power imbalances between health actors in high-income and low-income countries and on challenging ideas and values of some wealthy countries that shape the practice of global health. The authors of…

More years of schooling improves all-cause mortality globally – Lancet

Post categories: Social Determinants of Health Structural Violence Post tags:
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A systematic review and meta-analysis by the IHME-CHAIN collaborators (Lancet 23 January 2024) demonstrated that increased “years of schooling had a significant and consistent effect on all-cause mortality risk and that the protective effect of education persisted for female and male individuals, across all age groups, and all levels of Socio-demographic Index of the country where the data were collected. These findings are similar to the protective effects of a good diet and physical activity and the harms of risk…

Vaccine Milestone: South Africa Starts Local Meningitis Production

Post categories: Medical Apartheid Post tags:
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In a landmark move for public health and African pharmaceutical manufacturing, South Africa’s Biovac has entered into a strategic partnership with Korean vaccine producer, EuBiologics Co. Ltd., to commence the production of a meningitis vaccine on African soil. This collaboration represents a significant stride in the fight against meningococcal disease, an endemic threat in South Africa and across the sub-Saharan region. Meningococcal meningitis, a bacterial infection causing the inflammation of the brain and spinal cord membranes, poses a severe health…

Rewriting the Script of Global Health

Post categories: Decolonization Post tags:
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In the heart of Rwanda, a pharmaceutical revolution is unfolding, disrupting a global health order long dominated by high-income nations. This bold move by a nation determined to chart its own course in healthcare sovereignty embodies the spirit of decolonizing global health. It serves as a testament to the possibility of a world where equity in health is not just an aspirational goal but an actionable reality. This narrative of empowerment and systemic change ignites the conversation around decolonizing global…

Substandard medicines blamed for 285,000 childhood malaria, pneumonia deaths

Post categories: Medical Apartheid Post tags:
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VIdya Krishnan, an Indian Journalist writes about a “dirty secret in global health:” that rich countries get quality medicines and that the poor countries often get poison. Her op-ed in the Sept 11 New York Times describes the regulatory inequities between rich and poor nations. and how these inequities fail to prevent manufacture and export of substandard medicines. Rich countries have well-funded regulators keeping an eye on the safety and quality of drugs; most low income countries don’t have the…