Take as Directed

Last month, top policymakers, scientists, and activists gathered in Amsterdam for the 22nd International AIDS Conference to examine the current state of global HIV/AIDS response, and how that response should be shaped by the global health community in the years to come. In this episode of Take as Directed, we are joined by Owen Ryan, Executive Director of the International AIDS Society (IAS), which organizes the International AIDS Conference every two years. Owen discusses the main science and policy takeaways from this year’s conference and addresses the concerns raised by activists about holding the conference in the United States in 2020, which is set to take place in San Francisco and Oakland.

In this episode, a former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff joins us to discuss the story of his son Jonathan, who died from a fentanyl overdose last year. Admiral James "Sandy" Winnefeld is a retired four-star Navy admiral, and has become a vocal advocate for opioid death prevention. He heads Stop the Addiction Fatality Epidemic, or S.A.F.E. Project U.S., a national nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the opioid epidemic in the United States. Admiral Winnefeld describes how difficult it was to find treatment for Jonathan and recounts the challenges of recognizing signs of recovery--and signs of relapse.

Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim is one of the world’s leading AIDS researchers and has made pioneering contributions to understanding the HIV epidemic in young people, especially among young women. She joined us for a two-part series to explain her latest research into epidemic hot spots in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, focusing on both the structural and biological risk factors that facilitate the spread of HIV in young women. In Part 2, she describes her recent findings about biological factors that can simultaneously increase a woman’s risk of HIV acquisition and decrease the efficacy of HIV prevention tools. Hosted by Janet Fleischman. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.

Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim is one of the world’s leading AIDS researchers and has made pioneering contributions to understanding the HIV epidemic in young people, especially among young women. She joined us for a two-part series to explain her latest research into epidemic hot spots in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, focusing on both the structural and biological risk factors that facilitate the spread of HIV in young women. In Part 1, she discusses the social and economic factors that contribute to the dramatic differences in HIV rates in women and men at different ages. Hosted by Janet Fleischman. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.

In this episode, Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), joins us to discuss the different roles that IFRC plays across the vast array of populations they serve, their current work on the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the lessons they learned from the previous outbreak. Mr. Sy has also been named co-chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, and he describes to us the current state of the planning for this new independent monitoring body launched by the WHO and the World Bank on May 24th at the 71st World Health Assembly.   Hosted by Steve Morrison. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.

In 2016, the World Health Organization announced that a single full dose of yellow fever vaccine would provide lifelong protection from the virus. However, due to global shortages and complicated production requirements, there has not been sufficient supply to meet the demands of recent outbreaks. Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016 and now Brazil in 2018 have turned to using fractional doses, or about 1/5 of a full dose, as a stopgap measure—these diluted doses are only known to offer one year of protection against the virus. In this episode of Take as Directed, Daniel Lucey, a senior scholar with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, joins us to discuss the threat of yellow fever, our lack of preparedness, and the potential for a significant outbreak in Asia.   Hosted by Steve Morrison. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.

Dr. Christos Stylianides serves as the European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management and is the European Union Ebola Coordinator. Christos joins us for this episode to discuss how the current Ebola response has differed from the response in 2014 and the leading role that Europe is playing in that response. He also discusses his current work to expand resources for education services for children and adolescents living through crises and emergency situations.   Hosted by Steve Morrison. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.

Providing services equitably requires global health practitioners to have detailed data on the populations they are trying to reach. This episode of Take as Directed, hosted by Senior Fellow Nellie Bristol, highlights new initiatives to collect and analyze sub-national data to give a clearer picture of children being missed. Nellie is joined by guests Laurie Werner, Global Director for the Better Immunization Data (BID) Initiative at PATH, and Jon Mosser, a Fellow in pediatric infectious diseases at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington and Clinical Fellow with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. They discuss new initiatives to map vaccine coverage, technical challenges to collecting data in resource poor settings, and the importance of spending development dollars on data collection and analysis.   Hosted by Nellie Bristol. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.

The world of global health security has been amassed in headlines over the past few weeks—from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the elimination of the Global Health Security Directorate within the White House National Security Council staff. For this episode of Take as Directed, we feature three leading health security experts with substantial frontline experience who discuss the current state of preparedness around the world, gaps and priorities looking ahead, and how to maintain pandemic preparedness as a high-level political priority at times of peace. Beth Cameron, Vice President of Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, serves as our guest host for this discussion, alongside featured guests Amadou Sall, CEO of Pasteur Institute in Dakar, Senegal, and Andrew Kitua, Africa Regional Director of the USAID Preparedness and Response project.

Amidst a time of potentially historic talks between the U.S. and North Korea, we take an inside look at the health challenges that North Korea faces and the opportunities for progress that can be made through key diplomatic steps. For this discussion, we turn to Dr. Kee B. Park, Paul Farmer Global Surgery Scholar at Harvard Medical School and Director of North Korea Programs for the Korean American Medical Association. Dr. Park has just returned from another trip to North Korea and joins us to discuss his latest visit, the potential impacts of economic sanctions on humanitarian engagement, and the operating environment that influenced the Global Fund's decision to close its TB and malaria programs. We conclude by hearing about some exciting new initiatives Dr. Park is pursuing to strengthen U.S.-North Korea collaboration in the health sector and his optimism looking forward. Dr. Park is also one of many co-authors on our recent commentary “The Gathering Health Storm Inside North Korea.” Hosted by Steve Morrison. Produced by Alex Bush. Edited by Ribka Gemilangsari.