Associate Professor in Global Health Policy @LSEnews - global health security; gender; global health policy
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May 17 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
For those interested in the UK's position on #pandemicagreement - and the increased media coverage it is getting, it's important to understand the political context here.
The UK's position on the substantive content of the agreement have not particularly changed, but the politics has. We had local elections here on 2nd May, and we're due to have a general election before the end of the year. The government have low polling and will lose office.
May 20, 2022 • 22 tweets • 11 min read
I welcome the recent engagement by sections of the media and public to engage + participate in global pandemic governance thru #stopthetreaty … but first there needs to be greater understating of what @WHO is + what currently is for discussion in #IHR reform #pandemictreaty 🧵
For anyone else going thru this #paediatric#Hepatitis chaos, or interested. I’ve read pretty much everything out there and these are the best sources I’ve found - mostly descriptive or syndromic reporting - in no particular order🧵
preprints.org/manuscript/202…
(Pre-print; not peer reviewed)
Aug 19, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Perhaps a controversial opinion, but this “origins of covid” witch hunt is a smoke screen by global health community / western governments.
Yes, we need to know so we can prevent in future
But can we not focus on the abysmal pandemic management globally instead?
And this is something that the rest of the world has agency over and can make changes to pandemic plans to manage better in due course.
Spending time and effort fighting with China / WHO isn’t going to alter the course of #covid now, but improving global response could
Aug 17, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
One of my fears coming out of #COVID and preparing for the next one is that we focus on the wrong questions or asking the wrong people the right questions.
To me, most of the problems which led to #COVID *and continue to allow it to proliferate are all political. 1/
Throughout this pandemic I have been acutely aware of epidemic trespassing: not wanting to weigh in on things beyond my own expertise 🧵(rant incoming)
For me this is questions of epidemiology and disease transmission which I am wholly unqualified to answer.
This has also been subject to considerable gatekeeping by some epi/clinical folks.
Jul 5, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
This shift to personal responsibility for #COVID is straight out of the (poor) epidemic response playbook. The exact same thing happened during Zika.
Government told people not to get infected thru insecticide/long sleeves, improve vector control and not to get pregnant. 1/
What then happened was that govs were then able to place responsibility onto individuals to avoid having children born with #CZS - The approach was "we've given you all the guidance, if you choose to get pregnant and not protect yourself from infection, that's your decision" 2/
Feb 25, 2021 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
I think #vaccinepassports or #vaccinecertificates are a bad idea, and governments really need to think carefully before proceeding. They are a Pandora's Box.
Ultimately health status should not be the determinant of one's rights. A🧵
Firstly, in a pandemic intensifying all societal inequalities, we shouldnt be introducing mechanisms to further compound these. Those who are unable to get vaccinated (for health reasons, pregnant women) will be immediately discriminated against.
Jan 5, 2021 • 15 tweets • 9 min read
Lockdown 3.0 will disproportionately affect #women, and #ukgov isnt doing enough to mitigate this unequal impact.
A thread on what we know from the last year *and before 🧵
According to @ONS women did 2/3rds additional childcare duties + spent more time on unpaid work + less time on paid work than men during lockdown1.0
ONS also show that women did more non-developmental care than men (i.e. cooking, washing, not playing) shorturl.at/gjrCY
Jan 3, 2021 • 7 tweets • 8 min read
🚨New Year, New Paper 🚨
Remember research before #COVID19 - findings from our 3 year study on access to #abortion during #zika in Brazil, El Salvador and Colombia in press now W/ @socscimed 1/ sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
We found that whilst #zika spurred abortion demand amongst individual womxn and global debate on #reproductiverights - the heath emergency didn’t change national regulation or policy change for abortion access.
2/
Aug 27, 2020 • 9 tweets • 8 min read
The thing that makes me the most frustrated about #COVID19 (and has for many months) is the failure to learn lessons from previous outbreaks, particularly about the downstream effects of #pandemic response policy. A thread 1/
This morning @BBCr4today@TheCrick discussed disruption to non-covid #clinicaltrials ; also have seen depressing delays to #cancer detection and treatment ; and changes to routine SRH, maternity, NCD, mental health services.
As #Brazil becomes the new epicentre of #COVID19 these are my must reads to understand the political context in which the outbreak emerged and the impact of this (a thread)
This piece by @Deisy_Ventura early on in the outbreak captures a lot of the anticipated tensions within the SUS (unified health system); between Bolsonaro, science and populism (similar in many ways to US, UK etc) - which unfortunately have become real!
A thread of thoughts about why #COVID19 is so remarkable having studied #globalhealthsecurity and politics of health emergencies for several years - almost every element could and has been predicted #COVID#covid19UK (1/11) :
Academics have thought that a major outbreak would emerge in China, and this would be challenged by tensions over veracity of Chinese data (the memory of #SARS not easily forgotten) tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10… (2/11)
