Category: Viewpoints

Pierre Somse and Patrick M. Eba Almost 40 years ago, the Central African Republic, like other countries in Africa and around the world, was confronted with the HIV pandemic that would shake the human, social, and economic foundations of entire societies. Since the beginning of that epidemic, more than 32 million people have died of HIV-related illnesses globally.[1] The HIV epidemic was first presented as a disease of homosexuals, then…

Continue reading “Lessons from HIV to Guide COVID-19 Responses in the Central African Republic”

Swarupa Deb In this Viewpoint I draw attention to the distresses faced by the transgender community in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. I acknowledge the direct health risks of COVID-19 as well as related perils arising from discrimination. I also raise concerns not just about the lack of healthcare facilities, but also about the lack of dialogue and inclusion of transgender people regarding their healthcare. Transgender people in India are…

Continue reading “Living on the Edge: COVID-19 Adds to Distress and Discrimination of Indian Transgender Communities”

Tenu Avafia, Boyan Konstantinov, Kene Esom, Judit Rius Sanjuan, and Rebecca Schleifer The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world has and will continue to have an incredibly disruptive impact on many lives. As of 24 March 2020, at least 334,981 people have been infected and 14,652 have died across 174 countries.[1] Beyond these already tragic and growing consequences, COVID-19 will also have a major impact on the…

Continue reading “A Rights-Based Response to COVID-19: Lessons Learned from HIV and TB Epidemics”

Joseph J. Amon The world is increasingly focused on COVID-19. By March 23, 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 332,935 people had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in 190 countries and territories around the world and 14,510 had died.[1] In the United States, 35,530 people have been diagnosed with the disease and 473 people have died.[2] These numbers are likely an underestimate, due to the lack of availability of…

Continue reading “COVID-19 and Detention: Respecting Human Rights”

Jacqueline Bhabha, Margaret M. Sullivan, and Mary T. Bassett The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a near universal closure of schools. By 20 March, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had documented closures in 119 countries, 107 of which were nationwide. The number of children kept from school numbers in the hundreds of millions. At this time, at least 95,000 schools across the United States have been…

Continue reading “Protecting Children’s Rights As Schools Close”

Alicia Ely Yamin and Roojin Habibi It has scarcely been a month since COVID-19 (then simply known as the disease caused by a novel ‘coronavirus’) was declared a “public health emergency of international concern”. The virus has since travelled to every continent except Antarctica, and prompted at least 80 travel restrictions against China, with many others now targeting secondarily affected countries, such as Iran, Italy, and South Korea.[1] Although World…

Continue reading “Human Rights and Coronavirus: What’s at Stake for Truth, Trust, and Democracy?”

Since we launched our Viewpoint feature in December 2019 to celebrate 25 years of Health and Human Rights, we have published 14 articles from leading health and human rights scholars. Each has reflected on the progress of our field since the launch of the Journal under the editorship of Jonathan Mann in 1994, and offered thoughts on today’s challenges, and those imminent. We encourage readers to share these with their…

Continue reading “Viewpoints: Human Rights Challenges in the Field”

Rachel Hammonds The climate emergency is undermining human rights progress globally, presenting humanity with a complex problem that demands a transformative approach to our fundamental existence, including what we eat, how we live, and how we travel and commute. Five years ago the editorial in this Journal’s issue on Climate Justice and the Right to Health asked if our era will be viewed as the era of the “Great Procrastination”…

Continue reading “How Can We Overcome the Great Procrastination to Respond to the Climate Emergency?”

Claire E Brolan Congratulations to Health and Human Rights on its 25th anniversary from Queensland, Australia. In 2010 I read Jonathan Mann’s article, “Health and Human Rights: If Not Now, When?”, published in Health and Human Rights in 1997, and republished in the American Journal of Public Health in 2006.1 Therein, Mann identified that in the public health and human rights fields, “we are creating, participating in, and witnessing an…

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Sara L. M. Davis, Kenechukwu Esom, Rico Gustav, Allan Maleche, and Mike Podmore In 1994, when Health and Human Rights was launched by editor Jonathan Mann, it appeared-in print-in a very different world: one in which the internet had just been created, and could only be accessed through dial-up telephone lines paid for by the minute; cell phones were heavy, clunky, and unaffordable for most. Our thinking about health and…

Continue reading “A Democracy Deficit in Digital Health?”