Pandemic Planet
43 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsA regular discussion of the global health security challenges facing the world.
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Episodes
Dr. Jeffrey L. Sturchio: The EHE initiative is worth investing in because “the money is getting results”
December 16, 2022 05:00 - 27 minutesKatherine is joined by Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Senior Associate (Non-Resident) with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center and co-author of the new report, The Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. Initiative: An Interim Assessment and Policy Recommendations. The EHE initiative began in 2019 with a goal of reducing new HIV infections by 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030. However, thanks to limited funding and the diversion of resources during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is not currently on track to meet tho...
Dr. Heidi Larson: The importance of incorporating listening into an “epidemic of pandemic preparedness activities”
October 28, 2022 13:32 - 28 minutesDr. Heidi Larson, co-founder of the Global Listening Project and founding director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, joins Katherine to discuss the impacts of Covid-19 on global vaccine confidence and the importance of listening closely to people’s stories to better understand how individuals experience and navigate global health threats. Prior to the pandemic, nationally representative surveys suggested that many people accepted routine ...
Dr. Jeni Miller: “We do not have the luxury to set aside working on the climate crisis”
October 14, 2022 13:41 - 30 minutesIn this episode, Katherine is joined by Dr. Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, to discuss the ways in which a changing climate affects health outcomes, as well as the ways in which health professionals can work with those in other sectors to advocate for greater focus on the climate-health nexus. Arguing that a shared interest in health and well-being can unite groups that might otherwise hold opposing views on how to address climate change, Jeni points...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal – IAVI’s Mark Feinberg: Innovations in Prevention and Novel Partnerships Are Needed to Sustain the HIV Response
September 30, 2022 17:39 - 36 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS' Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada, on July 30th, Jeff Sturchio speaks with Dr. Mark Feinberg, president and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). In this interview, Dr. Feinberg addresses the continued progress in HIV prevention and treatment seen in recent years and outlines the challenges still faced in translating this progress into meaningful impact on the lives of people affec...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal – Solange Baptiste: Addressing Structural Barriers to Achieve Equitable Access to HIV Treatment for All
September 23, 2022 04:00 - 25 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS' Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada, on July 30th, Jeff Sturchio speaks with Solange Baptiste, Executive Director of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC). This is one in a series of podcasts in which we explore what needs to be done to end the AIDS pandemic, both globally and domestically. In this wide-ranging interview, Ms. Baptiste addresses the issues that are still creating ...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal – Sex Work Advocates Phelister Abdalla and Ruth Morgan Thomas: How “sex workers do it better” in advocacy, community-led initiatives, and leadership
September 16, 2022 04:00 - 28 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS’ Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Katherine speaks with Phelister Abdalla, of KESWA, the Kenya Sex Work Association, and Ruth Morgan Thomas, of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSPW), about the intersection of sex work, HIV/AIDS, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Phelister and Ruth argue that sex workers’ livelihoods have been uniquely disrupted by recurring curfews and lockdowns, noting that this often-sti...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal – Professor Alan Whiteside: Learning from HIV/AIDS and Covid-19: understanding the role of equity, economics, democracy, and the power of communities
September 09, 2022 13:57 - 29 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS' Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada, on July 31st, Jeff Sturchio speaks with Professor Alan Whiteside, Centre for International Governance Innovation Chair emeritus in Global Health Policy at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Professor Whiteside begins with a discussion of new treatments and prevention tools for HIV/AIDS that offer the opportunity for those who have access to enjoy long...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal – Former IAS President & International Co-Chair of AIDS 2022 Adeeba Kamarulzaman: “Reengagement” through collaboration and connection
September 02, 2022 04:00 - 25 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS’ Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Katherine speaks with Dr. Adeeba Kamarulzaman, immediate past president of IAS and the International Co-Chair of AIDS 2022, about the themes of this year’s conference, “Re-engage and follow the science.” Four years since the last International AIDS Conference took place in Amsterdam, Adeeba discusses the importance of bringing the HIV research, advocacy, and policy communiti...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal – Dr. Michel Kazatchkine: HIV/AIDS and the Politics of Health and Human Rights
August 26, 2022 15:53 - 39 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS' Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada, on July 31st, Jeff Sturchio speaks with Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, Professor of Medicine at the Universite Rene Descartes in Paris, Special Advisor to UNAIDS for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and a Senior Fellow with the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Professor Kazatachkine reviews the interactions o...
Live from AIDS 2022 in Montreal - UNAIDS’s Eamonn Murphy: "Sounding the Alarm" on the risks to progress in global HIV programs during Covid-19
August 19, 2022 04:00 - 30 minutesIn this crossover episode with AIDS Existential Moment, recorded during the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Katherine Bliss speaks with Eamonn Murphy, Deputy Executive Director of Programmes at UNAIDS, the Joint UN Program on HIV and AIDS, about the agency’s latest report, “In Danger.” Sounding the alarm regarding faltering progress in HIV prevention and treatment over the course of the pandemic, the report calls for greater attention to implementing legal protections for vulnerabl...
Ann Keeling: Female healthcare workers need to be seen as “assets and not volunteers”
July 29, 2022 04:00 - 28 minutesKatherine is joined by Ann Keeling, Senior Fellow with Women in Global Health and lead author of WGH’s new policy brief, Subsidizing Global Health: Women’s Unpaid Work in Health Systems. Neglecting to pay women appropriately for their contributions to the global health workforce is not new. In 2015, the Lancet Commission on Women and Health estimated that women contribute $3 trillion to global health activities every year but that at least half of that labor is unpaid, with negative implicati...
Ted Chaiban: “Progress is Possible” in Addressing Global Covid-19 Vaccine Inequities
July 22, 2022 16:22 - 33 minutesTed Chaiban, Global Lead Coordinator for UNICEF’s Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership (CoVDP), joins Katherine to discuss the state of Covid-19 vaccine coverage across the world; why some countries continue to struggle with low coverage, even as vaccine supplies have improved; and what steps need to be taken to ensure vaccines reach the most vulnerable. Out of the 34 countries that in January 2022 had Covid-19 vaccination coverage of below 10%, 23 have now surpassed 10% and 8 now have cover...
John-Arne Røttingen: Investing in Pandemic Preparedness to Insure Against Future Threats
July 15, 2022 04:00 - 38 minutesIn this episode, Katherine speaks with John-Arne Røttingen, Ambassador for Global Health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway. Whether it’s continuing to fight against Covid-19 through increasing equitable access to vaccines and therapies; understanding how the Financial Intermediary Fund fits into the global health funding framework; what the global response to Monkeypox tells us about the state of international cooperation on health; or addressing the threat of AMR, Ambassador Røtting...
Douglas Mercado: “Doing good ain’t easy"
May 17, 2022 13:52 - 30 minutesKatherine is joined by Doug Mercado, head of the area office with the World Food Program in Romania, which is managing the delivery and distribution of food supplies to vulnerable communities in neighboring Ukraine. The impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are felt internally, regionally, and globally, with agricultural production disrupted and access to food supplies limited because of damage to infrastructure and markets. At the same time, both Ukraine and Russia produce wheat and corn f...
Live From Munich: Dr. Richard Hatchett: “Pandemic Preparedness Needs to Be Viewed as a Security Challenge”
March 15, 2022 16:48 - 33 minutesTwo years later, Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations rejoins Steve for the second iteration of our Live From Munich mini-series. Dr. Hatchett reminds us that having just had a pandemic does not prevent outbreak from another, and that pandemic preparedness needs to be “viewed as a security challenge, not as a health challenge, not as a development challenge”. He points to lessons in vaccine manufacturing and financing arrangements that incentivize d...
Dr. Heidi Larson: "The nature of the security threat has changed"
March 11, 2022 14:47 - 27 minutesDr. Heidi Larson, founder of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine’s Vaccine Confidence Project™ and co-chair of the CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation, joins Katherine for this episode. The national security threats associated with low confidence in vaccines have changed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we’ve seen growing polarization on regarding vaccine mandates, increased aggression towards scientists, the circulation of rumors and dis...
Live from Munich: Tom Bollyky: “We can't do this on our own.”
March 10, 2022 19:19 - 38 minutesIn the fourth episode of our Live From Munich Mini-Series, Steve is joined by Tom Bollyky, the Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development and Director of the Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Bollyky attended the Munich Security Conference “to keep the conversation about the response to the COVID crisis still on the national security agenda”. National security and global health have been historically linked, as exemplified with the birth of PEPFAR...
Live From Munich: Dr. Jeremy Farrar: “We Must Not Be Caught Vulnerable Again”
March 08, 2022 17:10 - 14 minutesTwo years ago, Dr. Jeremy Farrar joined Steve for the first iteration of Live From Munich, when the Covid-19 Pandemic was just emerging. Today, for the third installment of this Live From Munich mini-series, he returns to discuss this murky transition into the next stage of the pandemic. Dr. Farrar predicts that “political interest will wane from the pandemic because other events take over.” Politics are turning towards an exhausted, frustrated, even sometimes violent public. “We all feel fed...
Live From Munich: Dr. Seth Berkley: “It is a Security Issue”
March 04, 2022 21:21 - 28 minutesIn episode #124, the second episode of our Live From Munich mini-series, Steve is joined by Seth Berkely, CEO of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, “the largest purchaser of vaccines in the world”. He speaks on strengthening health security: “Do we prepare for our hopeful future? Or do we prepare for reality?” “The right thing to do is to continue to prepare for worsening variants, worsening disease. And the best way to do that is to make sure high-risk people all over the world are as protected as ...
Live From Munich: Dr. John Nkengasong: “The Concepts are Global, But the Practice is Local”
March 04, 2022 21:19 - 32 minutesDr. Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC and soon to be head of PEPFAR joined us for this 123rd episode, and the first episode of our Live From Munich mini-series, a collection of episodes recorded at the Munich Security Conference. He is a leader in the initiative to incorporate global health in security discussions like the Munich Security Conference. “We have seen how an outbreak of a disease can truly be a health security matter, and also human security, as well as even going as far as ...
“It’s going to hit the most vulnerable hardest, like everything does.”
February 04, 2022 20:16 - 33 minutesIn this episode Katherine speaks with Daniela Ligiero, executive director and CEO of Together for Girls, a partnership focused on collecting data to raise awareness about the problem of violence towards children and adolescents, with a special focus on preventing sexual violence against girls. During the Covid-19 pandemic young children, particularly girls, have become especially vulnerable to violence, including sexual violence, spending long, unsupervised hours online or alone at home while...
The Global Fund’s Peter Sands on Fighting Multiple Pandemics at the Same Time
December 15, 2021 16:30 - 36 minutesIn this episode Katherine speaks with Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, about the ways in which the Fund has expanded its grant-making activities to support lower and lower-middle income countries in responding to Covid-19. Noting the importance of ensuring continuity of HIV, TB, and malaria services while addressing the Covid-19 outbreak, he insists that health emergency preparedness cannot be funded at the expense of ongoing infectio...
COP26 and the Health Impacts of Climate Change
December 07, 2021 17:08 - 29 minutesIn this episode Keith Martin, executive director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), talks with Katherine about the outcomes of the recent UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland; why it’s important to integrate a focus on health into global discussions about climate; how people who carry out research on global health and climate issues can frame their findings for policymakers and audiences beyond academia for greater impact; and the reaso...
Seth Berkley on COVAX’s Past, Present and Future
December 01, 2021 20:24 - 45 minutesIn this episode, an edited version of a live event on November 15, Katherine talks with Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, about the first year and a half of COVAX, the global collaboration focused on ensuring globally equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines. One year after the first vaccines were made available, their distribution remains highly unequal, with an overwhelming majority of doses so far delivered to populations in high-income countries. Even as vaccine production has...
Ambassador Stephanie Williams on Australia’s health security diplomacy during Covid-19
November 19, 2021 15:22 - 37 minutesIn this episode, Dr. Stephanie Williams, Australia’s ambassador for regional health security, talks with Katherine E. Bliss about the Australian government’s efforts to strengthen countries’ capacities to deliver health care, including Covid-19 vaccines. She describes what it was like to assume the role of regional health ambassador just as the Covid-19 pandemic was getting underway and discusses the work of the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security’s focus on health issues in the Indo-Paci...
The Case for Routine Immunizations within Health Emergency Response
October 26, 2021 18:45 - 42 minutesDuring the Covid-19 pandemic, countries around the world have seen coverage levels for routine immunizations drop as resources and health workers have been diverted to pandemic response, including the delivery of Covid-19 vaccines. In this episode, Julia Spencer, Associate Vice President for Global Vaccines, Public Policy Partnerships, and Government Affairs at Merck & Company, and Margaret Cornelius, Deputy Director of Private Sector Programs at ThinkWell, join Katherine Bliss to discuss why...
Building a Resilient Health System: Costa Rica’s 80 Year Experiment
September 28, 2021 19:07 - 37 minutesRomán Macaya Hayes, executive president of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, joined Katherine E. Bliss for a conversation on how Costa Rica has prioritized the equitable delivery of primary health care services to reduce infant and maternal mortality, achieve a high level of vaccine coverage, increase life expectancy, and build trust in the health system. He explained how the country’s network of locally-based health workers develop personal connections with the people and communities the...
Trends in Societal Division and Popular Opinion During the Pandemic
September 17, 2021 20:55 - 39 minutesIn this episode, J. Stephen Morrison speaks with Jacob Poushter, an expert in international survey research at Pew Research Center, about Pew’s recent report “People in Advanced Economies Say Their Society Is More Divided Than Before Pandemic.” Jacob explains the main findings of the report and discusses how public perceptions of societal division within advanced economies have changed over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. How are publics in Japan, Sweden, the UK, and other countries perc...
Insuring Quality Vaccines During a Global Pandemic
August 19, 2021 17:50 - 28 minutesIn this episode, Katherine E. Bliss is joined by Ben Hubbard, co-founder, and CEO of Parsyl Inc. As the global race to access Covid-19 vaccines heats up, keeping products cold and ensuring their safe delivery to populations that need them becomes ever more important. Assessing the risks to vaccines during critical periods of transit, storage, and distribution, particularly in lower and middle-income countries that may have limited refrigeration infrastructure, involves real-time data analysis...
Covid-19 in Fragile & Conflict-Affected Areas: A Dynamic Problem
July 28, 2021 18:30 - 36 minutesIn this episode, Katherine E. Bliss is joined by two CSIS colleagues, Jacob Kurtzer, director and senior fellow with the Humanitarian Agenda, and Erol Yayboke, senior fellow with the International Security Program and director of the Project on Fragility and Mobility. They talk about how Covid-19 has impacted migrant, displaced, and refugee communities worldwide and the enormous challenge of reaching these vulnerable populations with health and other services. How has the humanitarian sector ...
Ken Staley on the “Best Job in Global Health”
July 14, 2021 14:38 - 33 minutesIn this episode, Katherine E. Bliss is joined by Ken Staley, Senior Associate with CSIS and the U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator under President Donald Trump. Ken shares his thoughts on his time in “the best job in global health,” reflecting on the promise of new innovations in malaria prevention and diagnosis, how Covid-19 has affected efforts to address malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa and the Greater Mekong region, and why he is hopeful that improved data collection and analysis, ...
Richard Hatchett on CEPI in the Covid-19 Era
July 01, 2021 17:22 - 46 minutesJulie Gerberding, co-chair of the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security and Executive VP, Merck, Inc, joined me at CSIS for a lively conversation with Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI.) Richard walked us through CEPI’s genesis in 2017, its mission to accelerate vaccines against dangerous pathogens, its sudden emergence during the pandemic as a foundational element of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT-A), including its emer...
Dame Sally Davies on the Silent Pandemic of Antimicrobial Resistance
June 04, 2021 15:29 - 25 minutesThis week, CSIS co-hosted the 9th annual Atlanta Global Health Summit with the World Affairs Council of Atlanta, CARE USA, and The Carter Center. J. Stephen Morrison spoke with Dame Sally Davies, the UK Special Envoy on Antimicrobial Resistance and Master of Trinity College at Cambridge University. She is also the single most impactful person in the last decade on advancing the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She provides an update on the Trinity Challenge she co-founded that br...
Improving Health Equity in the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond
June 02, 2021 16:28 - 29 minutesThe Covid-19 pandemic has revealed significant health disparities in the U.S. In this episode, Julie Morita, Executive Vice President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, shares the Foundation’s approach to a “culture of health” and discusses the challenge of promoting domestic demand for Covid-19 vaccines while ensuring their equitable distribution. She identifies steps that can be taken to restore people’s trust in vaccines, public health, and science; and describes how working with inter...
A Race Between Vaccines, Variants, and the Virus
May 19, 2021 14:06 - 34 minutesIn this episode, Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija, co-chair of the African Union’s Vaccine Delivery Alliance, joins us to discuss the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa. She shares her views on the potential for scaling up vaccine manufacturing in the region, her concerns that more transmissible viral variants may gain a foothold before enough vaccines are available, and her hope that global solidarity around the HIV epidemic in the early 2000s means that it is possible to galvanize collective ...
Solidarity and Nationalism in Europe’s Covid-19 Experience
April 30, 2021 15:29 - 28 minutesShortly after the February meeting of G7 leaders and virtual Munich Security Conference, Heather Conley, senior vice president at CSIS and director of the CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program, joined us to discuss the impacts of Covid-19 on European political and social movements, the importance of European leadership during the Covid-19 crisis, and opportunities for strengthened transatlantic cooperation on Covid-19, Russia, and China. How has the pandemic influenced political outcomes i...
Bruce Gellin: Keeping a Focus on Routine Immunizations While Responding to Covid-19
April 21, 2021 18:05 - 24 minutesLooking ahead to World Immunization Week, 2021, Bruce Gellin, President of Global Immunizations at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, joins us to discuss the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on routine immunization programs and reflect on the challenges and opportunities presented by the rollout of new vaccines to prevent infection with Covid-19. How have lockdowns, social distancing, and the diversion of health workers to outbreak response affected families’ access to immunization services? Are th...
Intersecting Pandemics: Adrian Thomas of J&J on Tuberculosis (TB) & Covid-19
March 24, 2021 16:33 - 32 minutesTo mark World TB Day, Katherine E. Bliss and J. Stephen Morrison speak with Adrian Thomas, TB expert and leader of global strategy at Johnson & Johnson Global Health. Every year, TB kills an estimated 1.4 million people and infects another 10 million people, with about 400,000 of those cases resistant to two or more drugs. Covid-19 has disrupted health systems and displaced funding and frontline staff away from TB, which models estimate will cause an additional million cases per year over the...
John Nkengasong of Africa CDC On Learning From the Pandemics of the Past
March 18, 2021 20:36 - 49 minutesIn this episode, Katherine E. Bliss and J. Stephen Morrison speak with Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC. The African continent has not seen the high Covid-19 caseload many feared at the beginning of the pandemic. We hear some reasons for this, what the lessons from Africa’s experience with HIV tell us about the steps needed to enable African countries to effectively control the pandemic, and how leadership from the continent is working with COVAX, pharmaceutical companies, and ...
John-Arne Røttingen: On the Front Lines of Pandemic Diplomacy
February 26, 2021 18:01 - 41 minutesThis month we were joined by Norway’s Ambassador for global health John-Arne Rottingen on his ‘virtual visit’ to Washington D.C. As co-chair of the ACT Accelerator Facilitation Council, Norway plays a key role in advocating for the development and distribution of Covid-19 diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. John-Arne shared his thoughts on the promise and difficulty of conducting R&D during health emergencies. He also discussed the roles of diplomacy, trust in international relations, an...
Peter Piot: “It’s Not Over Until it’s Over Everywhere”
February 25, 2021 14:15 - 31 minutesIn this episode, Peter Piot, medical doctor, virologist, and Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reflects on a year of surprises with Covid-19. Why did Europe and the Americas experience so many cases early on, and why are cases accelerating in Africa only now? What role has leadership played in controlling the pandemic and encouraging a stronger commitment to multilateralism and global equity in vaccine distribution? How will the new, more transmissible variants af...
Prioritizing Primary Care in a Global Pandemic
January 27, 2021 14:38 - 32 minutesIn this episode of Pandemic Planet we speak with Asaf Bitton, Executive Director at Ariadne Labs and a member of the CSIS Commission Strengthening America’s Health Security. Asaf Bitton is a practicing primary care physician, a researcher and professor, and a leader in health system innovation. We discuss the vital role of primary health care in creating a healthier, more equitable, and safer world. Why do strong health systems remain an elusive goal despite decades of international commitmen...
Seth Berkley: Planning for the Largest Vaccine Rollout in History
December 14, 2020 18:35 - 25 minutesFor our first episode of Pandemic Planet, we are joined by Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. For the past two decades, Gavi has mobilized its network of government, private sector, and civil society partners to make vaccines affordable and available to millions of children in the world’s lowest-income countries. Nearly a year into the pandemic, how has Gavi pivoted to respond to the challenge of the novel coronavirus? How has it worked with new partners to stand up global mecha...