WE have arrived at another of those moments, in this pandemic, where it’s critically important that countries respect a central decision-making body rather than go their own way. The issue on the table now is the use of health certificates to regulate international travel…
This article first appeared in The Guardian on 15 July 2021. To continue reading, click here.
YESTERDAY, on 11 March, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, or Tedros as he is known, declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic – that is, according to the WHO’s definition, “the worldwide spread of a new disease”…
This article first appeared in the New Statesman on 12 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.
THE Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is providing a natural experiment in fighting fake news. Occurring in a conflict zone, amid a controversial presidential election, the epidemic has proved to be fertile ground for conspiracy theories and political manipulation, which can hamper efforts to treat patients and fight the virus’s spread. Public health workers have mounted an unprecedented effort to counter misinformation, saying the success or failure of the Ebola response may pivot on who controls the narrative…
This story first appeared in Science on 15 January 2019. To continue reading, click here (paywall).
TUNE into a discussion of how diseases get their names on BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth, hosted by Michael Rosen with linguist Laura Wright, and guests me and Prof Peter Piot, who co-discovered Ebola, was a pioneer in the science of AIDS, and now heads up the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine…
This programme first aired on 6 February 2018. To listen, click here.
NEARLY 100 years ago, in 1918, the world experienced the greatest tidal wave of death since the Black Death, possibly in the whole of human history. We call that tidal wave the Spanish flu, and many things changed in the wake of it. One of the most profound revolutions took place in the domain of public health….
This article first appeared in Zócalo Public Square on 26 September 2017 and was reproduced the next day in the Smithsonian magazine. To continue reading, click here.