Opinion

  • 02 December 2020
    How the lessons the world learned in the fight against HIV can help us defeat COVID-19
    World AIDS Day reminds us that while we battle to contain COVID-19, we still haven’t finished the fight against the last big pandemic to hit humanity. After four decades and the loss of over 32 million lives, the battle against HIV is still unwon.
  • 01 December 2020
    Without Equity, We Cannot End COVID-19, HIV Or Any Other Pandemic
    While COVID-19 continues to accelerate around the world, the last few weeks have seen new optimism in the fight against the pandemic. Pfizer and Moderna have shared data showing their vaccines are more than 90% effective. People now dare to dream tha...
  • 19 November 2020
    COVID-19 must transform the definition of global health security
    The recent announcements that multiple new coronavirus vaccines are showing strong results provide hope that life will eventually return to normal and the catastrophic death toll will end – good news we all desperately need right now.
  • 19 November 2020
    Why drug-resistant tuberculosis poses a major risk to global health security
    Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) is a form of antimicrobial resistance that is difficult and costly to treat. It is caused by TB bacteria that are resistant to at least one of the first-line existing TB medications, resulting in fewer treatment op...
  • 10 June 2020
    In Kenya, A Chance to See Communities Confront COVID-19
    It feels like a year ago now. But it was on 19 March, when I left for my hometown of Nairobi from Geneva, where I live and work. I landed in Nairobi on the morning of 20 March, a week after Kenya had confirmed its first case of the coronavirus and a ...
  • 27 May 2020
    COVID-19 Threatens to Derail Fight Against HIV, TB and Malaria
    As COVID-19 ravages the world, the fight against HIV, TB and malaria is acutely at risk. That fight is not merely at risk of getting knocked off course – it can be derailed entirely.
  • 12 May 2020
    Amid COVID-19, Communities Continue Fight against Other Pandemics
    At the International AIDS conference in 2000 I joined an activist community that barreled through the streets of Durban demanding universal access to HIV treatment. At the time, the treatment was only accessible to the rich – it cost more than US$10,...
  • 07 April 2020
    The Threat to Africa
    Covid-19 is like a drama in which each act eclipses the one before. First, it was Wuhan. Then it moved to Europe. Now it’s accelerating in the United States. But the act that could overshadow all is when Covid-19 takes off in Africa.
  • 27 March 2020
    Re-thinking Global Health Security
    As the G7 and G20 strive to coordinate the global response to the COVID-19 crisis, policymakers are being bombarded with proposals about creating new funds, new institutions, and new initiatives, all requiring billions of dollars.
  • 25 March 2020
    When Finance Fails: Why Economists Didn’t See a Coronavirus Collapse Coming
    If being the CEO of a major international bank and now the head of a global health organization has taught me one thing, it’s that there’s a chasm of mutual incomprehension between the worlds of global finance and global health.