Blogs

Anthony Costello Few doctors realize that their work is often about human rights. A few years ago Flavia Bustreo, then Assistant Director-General of WHO, and Paul Hunt, the first UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of…

Carmel Williams In 1978 when the Alma-Ata Declaration called on urgent action by all governments to protect and promote the health of all, primary health care was described as ‘essential health care, based on practical, scientifically sound and…

Allan Maleche and Nerima Were The Alma-Ata Declaration had the wisdom 40 years ago to state: All governments should formulate national policies, strategies and plans of action to launch and sustain primary health care as part of a comprehensive…

Claudio Schuftan A contemporary primary health care policy needs renewed commitments, which, while affirming the fundamental positions of 40 years ago, also takes into account today’s realities. We have to address the obstacles that have blocked…

Sara L.M. Davis When the Alma-Ata declaration was launched in 1978, it called for “urgent action” by states and others to ensure a “level of health that will permit [people] to lead a socially and economically productive life.”[1] A product of its…

Leigh K. Haynes and Julia Robinson With the Alma-Ata Declaration, the world committed to achieving “health for all by the year 2000”, designating this “a most important world-wide social goal.” It identified primary health care as the principal…

Audrey R. Chapman The fortieth anniversary of the Declaration of Alma-Ata comes at a time when primary health care is once again receiving some well-deserved attention.[1] Target 3.8 of the Sustainable Development Goals to achieve universal health…

Benjamin Mason Meier, Maximillian Seunik, Roopa Dhatt, and Lawrence O. Gostin Forty years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF convened the International Conference on Primary Health Care on September 6, 1978 in Alma-Ata, USSR (now…

Lori Hanson Dia de los Trabajadores de la Salud (Health Workers Day) on 9 August was a somber and bitter affair in Nicaragua this year. Rather than celebrating, the Nicaraguan Medical Association (AMN) marked the day recounting medical personnel…

Sara L.M. Davis Steadily growing rates of HIV infection in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) are at the heart of a debate roiling health aid at AIDS 2018. While US funding for the global HIV response increased in 2017, that trend is unlikely…