Tag Archives: World Health Organization

Journalism, Medicine, Technology

Bill Gates on the pandemic

IN 2015, the American technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates warned that humanity wasn’t ready for a pandemic. Seven years on, as the world emerges (hopefully) from a pandemic for which it wasn’t ready, he thinks we have it within our power to make sure this one was the last. There will be more disease outbreaks, but we now possess the tools and the knowledge to prevent them from becoming global catastrophes…

This article first appeared in the New Statesman on 4 May 2022. To continue reading, click here:

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2022/05/bill-gates-on-the-pandemic-a-misplaced-faith-in-innovation

Journalism, Medicine

The dirty vaccine race

TO begin with, it felt like a sleek performance from a well-honed relay team. On 11 January, only 10 days after reporting a new respiratory disease, the Chinese published the genome sequence of the virus that causes it. Researchers around the world set to work building vaccines against Covid-19, as the disease became known, and the first candidate entered human trials on 16 March; it was joined, as the months passed, by dozens of others…

This article first appeared inThe Observer on 30 August 2020. To continue reading, click here.

Journalism, Medicine, Psychology

Epidemics expert Jonathan Quick: ‘The worst-case scenario for coronavirus is likely’

IN 2018 global health expert Jonathan D Quick, of Duke University in North Carolina, published a book titled The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It. In it he prescribed measures by which the world could protect itself against devastating disease outbreaks of the likes of the 1918 flu, which killed millions and set humanity back decades. He is the former chair of the Global Health Council and a long-term collaborator of the World Health Organization (WHO)…

This article first appeared in The Guardian on 1 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.

History, History of science or medicine, Journalism, Medicine

Coronavirus and the geopolitics of disease

ON 28 January 2020 at the Great Hall of the People on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – a symbol of the Chinese Communist Party’s political might – President Xi Jinping met Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), to discuss the current coronavirus outbreak. “The epidemic is a devil,” Xi said. “We cannot let the devil hide.” …

This article first appeared on the cover of New Statesman, issue 21-27 February 2020. To continue reading, click here.