Gender differentials in health related risks and outcomes are partly determined by biological sex differences. Yet they are also the result of how societies socialise women and men into gender roles. The paper draws together evidence that identifies and explains what gender inequality and inequity mean in terms of differential exposures and vulnerabilities for women versus men, and also how health care systems and health research reproduce these inequalities and inequities instead of resolving them.
Equity in Health
Gender inequity in health: why it exists and how we can change it
Sen G, Ostlin P, George A: Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network, 2007
Gender, climate change and health
World Health Organization: 2010
Effects of climate change on health will impact on most populations in the coming decades and put the lives and well-being of billions of people at increased risk, according to this report. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that ‘climate change is projected to increase threats to human health’. Climate change can affect human health directly (such as impacts of thermal stress, death/injury in floods and storms) and indirectly through changes in the ranges of disease vectors (such as mosquitoes), water-borne pathogens, water quality, air quality, and food availability and quality. The report also states that social impacts will vary dependent on age, socioeconomic class, occupations and gender, and the world’s poorest people will be most affected. The risks to health from climate change arise from: direct stresses (such as heatwaves, weather disasters and workplace dehydration); ecological disturbance (such as altered infectious disease patterns); disruptions of ecosystems on which humanity depends (for example, health consequences of reduced food yields); and population displacement and conflict over depleted resources (for example, water, fertile land, fisheries).
generic aids drugs deal is secured
Former United States President Bill Clinton has announced a deal with four generic-drug companies to slash the price of AIDS drugs in parts of the developing world. The agreement with three Indian pharmaceutical firms and a South African company will cut the price of a commonly used triple-drug treatment by almost a third, to about US$ 0.38 a day per patient. They include nine countries in the Caribbean and the African nations of Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania.
generic drugs talks deadlocked
Pharmaceutical industry officials said late last month that talks over access to generic drugs, including antiretrovirals, are "deadlocked," despite optimism from officials at the World Trade Organisation, Reuters reports. The talks have been stalled since members missed a December 31, 2002, deadline to reach an agreement. U.S. negotiators in February refused to sign a deal under the Doha declaration to allow developing nations to override patent protections to produce generic versions of drugs to combat public health epidemics such as AIDS unless wording was included to specify which diseases constitute a public health epidemic.
Genomics and World Health
The most up-to-date WHO publication on the subject, the report attempts to help WHO Member States to ensure that genome technology is used to reduce rather than exacerbate global inequalities in health status.
Ghana: Government Plans to Manufacture HIV/AIDS Medicine
Ghana hopes to begin manufacturing generic versions of HIV/AIDS drugs soon, the Accra radio JOY FM reported Minister of Health Richard Anane as saying. Two local pharmaceutical companies have been short-listed but the government plans to contract only one.
Glaxo Offers AIDS Drugs to More Countries
GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK.L) said on Monday it was extending its offer of cheap AIDS drugs to a total of 63 countries, following pressure from activists and charity groups. The medicines will be offered at the cost of production to governments, aid agencies and churches in all Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and any country in sub-Saharan Africa.
Glaxo Will Further Cut Prices of AIDS Drugs to Poor Nations
GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest maker of AIDS drugs, has announced that it is further cutting the prices of these drugs by as much as half in poor countries. The price of Combivir, the company's popular AIDS therapy that combines two drugs in a single pill, has been cut to 90 cents a day, from $1.70, a reduction of 47 percent, the company said. With the reduction, the medicine is available at a price roughly equivalent to some generic versions of AIDS drugs, it said. The price of Combivir in the United States is about $18 a day.
Glimmers of hope on the Ebola front
Fleck F: Bull World Health Organ;92:704–705, 2014
Daniel Bausch - interviewed in this paper- has been assisting with patient care during the current Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa and – as part of a WHO-led international collaboration – is exploring the possible use of experimental therapies and vaccines. He explains in this paper why this outbreak is different. He notes that the outbreak response had outstripped the available resources. Although personnel were deployed he says "we are all late and it has gotten out of control. It’s too simplistic to lay the blame on one group. There has been a lot of finger pointing at WHO, no one is immune to criticism, but WHO has suffered a loss of personnel and resources. So it’s not only about what we should have done at any particular time, but the whole foundation for an international public health response that has been eroded by the global economic downturn". He further observes that the scale and public profile of this outbreak means that potential vaccines and therapies that were stalled are now being pushed through clinical trials. He argues that if vaccines and drugs are provided in the not too distant future, the problem will change and people will start knocking on the door demanding prevention and treatment, so this is a public health strategy as well, but stemming the outbreak will still depend primarily on the classic strategy of case identification, with isolation and treatment, and contact tracing.
Global action on social determinants of health
Marmot M: Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 89(10): 702, October 2011
In the three years since ‘Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the Social Determinants of Health’ was published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the global financial crisis has deepened and the steps put in place to deal with the crisis have had worse impacts on the poor and relatively disadvantaged, while bad governance nationally and globally persists, and measures to mitigate climate change have served to increase health inequity. Despite the dissenters who claim that social determinants are not the concern of WHO, specialists across WHO used evidence-based research to show that action on social determinants of health was fundamental to disease control programmes. The author of this article suggests that the global community can still make great progress towards closing the health gap by improving the social determinants of health and by ensuring equity for every child from the start, as well as ensuring healthier environments, fair employment and decent work, social protection across the life course and universal health care. But to make progress, the global community must also deal with inequity in power, money and resources – the social injustice that is killing on a grand scale.