Global Health Security: Blog Posts

by Wade Warren and Marian W. WentworthThis post originally appeared on the Next Billion website. As the world takes action to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), we are reminded of the effectiveness of vaccination for many routine childhood diseases.

This blog was originally published on the MTaPS website by Dr. Lynn Lieberman Lawry, Senior Gender Advisor for the USAID Medicines, Technologies, and Pharmaceutical Services (MTaPS) ProgramMonitoring patients who are taking a new medicine, including vaccines, is critical for patient safety. This type of monitoring, also known as pharmacovigilance (PV), helps detect, assess, understand, and prevent adverse effects of a medicine-related problem. PV is critical for determining the true safety and efficacy of a product, including identification of good and bad effects.

To read this article in French, please click here.Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major threat in Côte d’Ivoire and requires rapid measures to contain it.For example, the average resistance to amoxicillin rose from 73.7% in 2012 to 87.3% in 2017 (Report of the Observatoire des résistances des microorganismes aux antiinfectieux en Côte d’Ivoire (Observatory on the resistance of microorganisms to anti-infectives in Côte d’Ivoire) for 2017).

Originally published in Think Global HealthThe colossal undertaking that is the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines is facing another gargantuan challenge: monitoring their safety over time.The vaccines have proven to be safe and effective in clinical trials. Yet as with the rollout of any new medicine or treatment, it takes time to see the bigger picture. Clinical trials, including those for the COVID-19 vaccines, follow thousands of volunteers from a limited population for several months.

OPINION: The pandemic may be interfering with our fight against drug-resistant bacteria. Luckily, the same tactics can beat back both scourges. As health-care systems around the world fight to contain Covid-19, they may be inadvertently opening the door wider to another killer that is just as dangerous.I’m talking about the spread of pathogens that are resistant to treatment, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The death toll from Covid is staggering, but so is that from antibiotic resistance: Nasty superbugs such as Clostridium difficile, or C.

Originally published in The Hill By Marian W. Wentworth and Wade Warren On Dec. 14, the United States crossed a grisly milestone of 300,000 lives lost to the coronavirus pandemic. That same week, we saw the first glimmer of light in this long, dark tunnel of a year as frontline health care workers began to receive an effective vaccine. Public health experts say we will be in a much better place come late summer of 2021.

COVID-19 has highlighted the need for long-term investments in regulatory systems to secure faster access to medical products. During a recent Livestream hosted by MSH and Deloitte, Professor Mojisola Christianah Adeyeye, Director General of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), emphasized the role regulatory agencies play in ensuring pharmaceutical system impact now and beyond the pandemic. One such breakthrough─local manufacturing─requires agencies shore up regulatory capacities and address challenges now. Prof. Adeyeye discusses how her agency supports the local manufacturing of medicines and prepares for the roll-out of vaccines against COVID-19.

Health workers not only need water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services to prevent the spread of COVID-19 right now but also to provide safe essential health services every day. But 25% of health facilities around the world lack basic water services. One in six facilities doesn’t have hand hygiene services, such as soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub, available at points of care. And health workers in facilities in sub-Saharan Africa face even greater WASH challenges.Two frontline health workers—Margaret Odera and Dr. Ann Phoya—recently called for improved WASH services during an event alongside the 75th United Nations General Assembly. Read on to find out what it’s like to be a health worker on the frontlines without WASH and the steps they are taking to access and improve WASH in Kenya and Malawi.

Until recently, “PPE” was an obscure acronym for many people, but now it has become a vital global commodity. Today, with the realities of COVID-19, health workers around the world are experiencing a troubling shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)—a mix of items including gloves, mask, aprons, and goggles that can help prevent disease transmission in health care settings. This shortage puts health workers in harm's way while trying to respond to the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic.

Nwando Mba is the Director of Public Health Laboratory Services at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), a sub-recipient to the Resilient and Sustainable Systems for Health (RSSH) project, funded by the Global Fund and managed by MSH. A medical laboratory scientist by profession, Mba started her career over 30 years ago in Nigeria’s Vaccine Production Laboratory at Yaba, Lagos. Mba discusses Nigeria’s efforts to increase the country’s testing capacity for coronavirus.

Raian Amzad, a technical advisor with the DFID-funded Better Health in Bangladesh (BHB) project, and her colleagues took time away from their regular work to help Bangladesh’s central response to COVID-19. Here’s how the project and the country are handling the pandemic threat. Can you tell me about your recent work assignment related to COVID-19? What did your typical day look like?On March 17, the Directorate General of Health Services opened a temporary Integrated Control Room for COVID-19 response. Fifteen different groups are working there.

Originally published by Scientific American“Rise of the superbugs.” “Global crisis.” “Nightmare bacteria.” “Deadly fungus.”The media has caught on to the dire threat that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) presents, and it has certainly captured the urgency of the situation.Global health professionals know this crisis has been years in the making and have been acting accordingly.

This op-ed was originally published by Devex.  Multidrug-resistant germs are spreading. A number of antibiotics and other antimicrobials already don’t work as they should, and as many as 700,000 people die each year because of it.

On November 13, approximately 100 global health security and development experts, public health practitioners, private sector representatives, academics, researchers, NGO staff members, scientists and students gathered at Harvard Medical School for the Ready Together Conference on Epidemic Preparedness. The day-long event was co-hosted by No More Epidemics, Management Sciences for Health (MSH), Harvard Global Health Institute, and Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security with support from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation.

In 2014, an Ebola outbreak that started in Guinea and quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone threatened health systems across West Africa. During the crisis, the Côte d’Ivoire National Institute of Public Health (INSP) mobilized a One Health cross-sectoral collaboration in the country’s western regions bordering the Ebola-affected countries and established committees to address the epidemic.

We’re excited to bring you this month’s edition of Leading Voices, a series that features the incredible talent that makes up MSH.

Last week, the World Health Organization elected Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as its next Director General. Amid his controversial campaign, I coauthored an open letter to the next Director General to prioritize factory farming, an eminent threat to global health. This letter, signed by over 200 experts in relevant fields, attracted a large degree of media attention in the New York Times, Lancet, Guardian, Huffington Post, and elsewhere.