It’s hard to put a face on global health. This is partly because the numbers are numbers too big to imagine: like 8.8 million lives that were lost last year due to preventable diseases, infections, and complications from childbirth.
Then there are the diseases, too many to count: malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, tetanus, and AIDS. Behind the statistics are people: people who get sick and die, doctors who try to heal them, politicians who fail them, and families that mourn them.
The tragedy is that they don’t have to die. Every day, in the poor corners of the world, people fall sick from things as simple as stepping on a rusty nail, or giving birth, or catching a cold.
Guests:
Brian Donnelly, foreign affairs reporter for the Boston Globe
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
Kingsley Magomero, doctor at Lilongwe Central Hospital, Malawi