Global

Most Europeans born today will live into their eighties but behind that impressive statistic lie inequalities and ill-health. It’s time we focused on adding life to years instead of years to life. In 1990, life expectancy at birth was 74.1 years in Europe. Today, it’s 80.9. This is a remarkable achievement, by any measure. However, […]

As ‘thinking season’ kicks off, the focus is on how technology and big data can deliver better value healthcare to more people than ever before. January is a time for reflection, planning and predicting what lies ahead. It’s the season for assessing the mega-trends that will shape our future and working out how we will […]

For the first time in history, a major industrial change is taking place in parallel with a global push towards a shared vision of the future. The 4th industrial revolution can be harnessed to address global development goals How can Europe make the most of the technology changes that are afoot? I would share some […]

Since the beginning, patient empowerment has been a central pillar of the European Patients’ Forum (EPF)’s vision and mission. Our aim is to promote patient-centred health systems involving patients in the decision-making and management of their condition. Following a consultation with our members, we decided to strengthen this commitment by setting up a one-year campaign […]

In the last few weeks we have seen the emergence of a new global public health threat, the Zika Virus (ZIKV). Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) are monitoring the spread of the Zika, a mosquito borne arbovirus. The WHO recently declared the diseases linked […]

For the first time in West Africa, a case of Ebola was confirmed on 21 March, three weeks after the first alert of a possible viral haemorrhagic fever emerged from Guinea’s Forest region. Animals such as fruit bats, rodents and monkeys, abundant in the adjacent rain forest, are believed to have served as ‘reservoir’ for the virus. However, once it passed from an infected animal to a human-being, the virus is now ready for human-to-human transmission. Though frightening and very lethal, relatively simple precautions can break the cycle of transmission and stop the epidemic from spreading. Dr Jean-Louis Mosser (JLM), health expert from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), is in the Guinean capital, Conakry, where he has been participating in crisis meetings and guiding ECHO’s response. He gives us a state of affairs.

Today, March 24, is World TB Day. We’re examining the link between HIV and tuberculosis (TB) infections and how, by fighting these diseases together, we can create a generation free of HIV and TB!

In linguistics, describing a word as a false friend implies that despite similarity in spelling or pronunciation, it actually has distinct – sometimes even contradictory – meanings in different languages. Describing rare diseases as ‘rare’ creates a similarly false association, one which implies they have a limited impact and scarcely occur. Drawing such a parallel does not reflect the reality for the approximately 30 million European citizens who have received a rare disease diagnosis. For them, a rare disease is anything but rare. Instead, it is an often long and terrifying crossing into largely unchartered waters that are characterised by a lack of information, specialists’ know-how and effective treatment. 

I overheard a debate at a breakfast meeting at the World Economic Forum Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China that went like this:

“The market won’t accept a malaria vaccine that costs more than $.40 a dose.”

“But that’s not possible, why can’t we just start solving the technical problem and then figure out how to pay for it?”