Feb Global Health Readings

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/health/surgeons-checklists.html

NYT piece summarizing some data from Ariadne Labs around the adoption of surgical checklist.  The challenges in penetration of the approach aren’t particularly surprising – culture change is hard across all settings, and one key aspect of health delivery is ascertaining how to deliver change effectively.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/how-make-snake-venom-without-any-snakes/605347

Neat approach to mass production of snake venom, which is a potential solution to a neglected tropical disease (as well as a great James Bond villain industry).

 

https://www.msf.org/ten-years-after-haiti-earthquake-medical-care-deteriorating

A decade after the Haiti earthquake, MSF – one of the NGOs that has been in Haiti the longest, and one of the few NGOs that publishes self-critical reports – put out this report detailing the steady deterioration of the healthcare system there.

 

https://www.devex.com/news/state-department-lays-out-criteria-for-resumption-of-northern-triangle-aid-96348

Finally, this Devex article discusses the impressively explicit quid-pro-quo request made by the Trump administration to three of the countries with a high burden of asylum-seekers fleeing to the US.  Foreign aid having strings attached to it is nothing new, as this article on neocolonialism in development reminds us, but it is impressive to see an unusually honest report about how this works.