15 May 2008, 10:46 Comments

by Robert Walgate

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim has given half a billion dollars to set up an institute to seek new approaches to primary health care in Latin America. The mobile phone – one of the sources of the benefactor’s wealth – may play a leading but not exclusive role. RealHealthNews interviewed its Executive President, Julio Frenk.

15 May 2008, 08:25 Comments

by Robert Walgate

A vaccine in Phase 1 trials in South Africa has shown the highest CD8 responses – which are important for TB protection – of any TB vaccine candidate so far. The trial was small, but preliminary data from animal studies suggest the vaccine does protect against childhood TB.

14 May 2008, 15:04 Comments

by Robert Walgate

The US$ multi-billion a year GAVI Alliance is spending a fraction of its budget to help its vaccines get to the end of the track, by strengthening health systems in a group of countries in central America, Africa and Asia. But what does it mean by ‘innovative’? Does that mean science?

14 May 2008, 14:19 Comments

by Robert Walgate

Carissa Etienne, WHO Assistant Director General for health systems, stresses the need for evidence, information and research to make cost-effective health policies in developing countries. Specifically, and with passion, she calls for a systematic review of all research on primary health care since Alma Ata to provide real evidence on what works and fails. Community health workers should also be studied, she says – all against a measure of health outcomes.

7 May 2008, 15:50 Comments

by Rupa Chinai

Reporting from the old Portuguese maritime state of Goa, in Western India, our correspondent Rupa Chinai asks what health care looks like from the patients’ perspective. She identifies major problems that need to be solved, both by researchers and by policy-makers, and offers a way forward. Her report is an indicator for all of India – and for many other countries with challenged primary health care systems.

28 April 2008, 14:26 Comments

A series of nine country reports, in addition to a comprehensive regional reports, will set agendas for health systems research in much of the the Middle East and North Africa. The Principal Investigator tells RealHealthNews what he’s learned.

28 April 2008, 13:59 Comments

Even countries in deep conflict can unite behind the idea of science to improve health, Palestine shows.The first of a series of studies on connecting health research with policy-making low- and middle-income Arab states has Palestine lighting a beacon for others to follow. RealHealthNews Editor Robert Walgate interviewed its author, Joan Jubran of the Center for Continuing Education at Birzeit University.

23 October 2007, 15:59 Comments

The Ministry of Health and health services in Kenya have received a refreshing boost from the Minister of Health, past Presidential candidate Charity Ngilu. But it hasn’t been easy. Here she puts health, and research for health, into its full political context.

23 October 2007, 11:17 Comments

Evidence leads to a radical conclusion – even when care is provided, empowerment matters. WHO’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health is due to report in 2008. Its Chairman, Sir Michael Marmot, here tells RealHealthNews his apolitical, but radical philosophy based on evidence, his hopes, and broad conclusions.