Here’s some good news: governments, philanthropists, and private sector companies committed US$8.8 billion this week to ensure Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance can immunise over 300 million children in the world’s poorest countries over the next five years! These new commitments, made at the Global Vaccine Summit hosted by the UK government, will ultimately save 8 million lives and give children a safer, healthier start to life.
This is more important now than ever. While the world is fighting to stop...
Health
Dr. Bonaventura Clotet is the director and president of Fundació Lluita contra la Sida (Fight against AIDS Foundation). We interview Dr. Clotet as part of our #PassTheMic campaign.
Here’s some of what he had to say.
This is a virus that recombines significantly, which is why it became even more contagious. So we need to design a new strategy that can cope with all these variations and mutations.
I think what’s very important these days is that we move forward to set...
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala is chair of the GAVI board and the former finance minister of Nigeria. Danai Gurira interviewed Dr. Okonjo-Iweala as part of our #PassTheMic series.
Here’s some of what she had to say.
This pandemic has made the world wake up to interconnectedness — how we are so interconnected that people in a remote area in one country are connected to a remote area in another country.
What that says to me is that no one in the world...
Dr. Craig Spencer works in an emergency department in charge of its global health programme and is on the board of directors of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). We interviewed Dr. Spencer as part of our #PassTheMic series. Here’s some of what he had to say.
We’re not safe until this virus is controlled everywhere, whether it’s in Alabama or Burundi.
I recognize that for us in the US, the acute focus needs to be on our preparation and saving...
Behind the stats and figures that demonstrate Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance’s success at making the world a healthier, safer place for everyone are the people. As part of our campaign to support Gavi’s third replenishment this year, we worked with five Nigerian artists to illustrate the doctors, nurses, community health workers, educators, technicians, parents, and children who all play critical roles in Gavi’s story of success.
Using photographs of health workers and families provided by Gavi, each artist used their...
Dr. Jen Kates is senior vice president and director of global health & HIV policy at The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Actress Connie Britton interviewed Dr. Kates as part of our #PassTheMic series.
Here’s some of what she had to say.
One of the ongoing challenges that comes up again and again, whether you’re talking about testing capacity, supplies, or what’s going to happen when there’s a vaccine, is this tendency for everyone to pull inward and not realize...
David Anderson is director of quality and infection prevention and control at Nightingale Hospital in Manchester, UK. He is a frontline nurse and humanitarian health advisor with UK-Med. He worked in Sierra Leone in 2014 during the Ebola epidemic. We interviewed David as part of our #PassTheMic series.
Here’s some of what he had to say.
If you had an absolutely coordinated global response to coronavirus, one of the beauties would be that you’d have greater control. We would have a...
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the former president of Liberia. We interviewed President Johnson-Sirleaf as part of our #PassTheMic series.
Here’s some of what she had to say.
Reflecting on our experience of dealing with Ebola, we know that a coordinated global response to COVID-19 is important. Isolation in close quarters, internally or internationally, cannot be achieved in this interconnected world of travel and communication.
This was made very evident to us in our Liberian experience. Restraining the movement of people on international...
Gayle Smith is the president and CEO of ONE. We interviewed Gayle as part of our #PassTheMic series.
Here’s some of what she had to say.
Coronavirus is currently running faster than we are — which means it’s winning. So we’ve got to outpace it. We need to tackle the pandemic everywhere. At the very least that means knitting together national strategies, sharing information and expertise, and operating in sync.
The other thing we need to think about globally is the...
Dr. Isaac Olufadewa is the executive director of the Slum and Rural Health Initiative Network in Nigeria. We interviewed Dr. Olufadewa as part of our #PassTheMic series.
Here’s some of what he had to say.
Here in Africa not only do we have the coronavirus crisis, we also have health systems that are really struggling.
Looking at some of the problems we are facing right now, one of the things that we are really battling against is misinformation and fake news....