 Salaam from the People's Dispatch Studios here in New Delhi. I'm Siddhantaani and you're watching Daily Debrief. We're continuing our round-ups for the year 2022. And today we're talking about public health, a major issue, of course, as the world attempts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It's the third year since the pandemic, the outbreak of the pandemic. And it's been a difficult period of recovery for, I think, pretty much the entire world. We're going to be talking about that, of course, and other issues, including outbreaks of other diseases, as well as backlogs in the treatment of other major public health issues, as well as movements around the world for the rights of public health workers. And joining us to talk about all of these subjects and more is Anna Vrachar of the People's Health Movement, who is now in Croatia. And I'm good to have you on the show once again, perhaps for the last time for 2022, talking about all the big stories that we've covered actually through the year in some detail. Let's start off with the pandemic, Anna, if that works for you. What is your understanding of where we are in terms of the COVID-19 situation at present? News of, of course, new outbreaks in China dominating the headlines from that perspective these days. But just in a wider sense, where are we at with regard to the pandemic? Right. And, you know, as you rightly said, this is the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. And I think that many people will have noticed that things have changed. So headlines have changed. The approach to COVID has changed. It's not so much. It's not such big news anymore. But, you know, 2022 was a big year for the pandemic because we have seen some of the initiatives that were launched already in 2020. We saw them wrap up and we saw them wrap up in a way that we didn't want to, in a way that we didn't want to see happen. So, you know, if we look back at 2020 and how activists responded to the first COVID-19 outbreaks was, was a kind of worry that the response in different parts of the world would vary and that they would vary depending on how much money was concentrated in the region. And of course, very early on in the pandemic, we saw that these activists were right and that people in Europe, in the US, in Australia, in the global north, essentially, were getting early access to medical resources that everybody needed. This is something that some countries in the global south tried to oppose. So they tried to step up and fight for changes. And let me underline that for temporary changes to IP rules, as the World Trade Organization that would allow them to have more access to vaccines that could have saved millions of lives, literally millions of lives could have been saved had the COVID-19 vaccines been more accessible in Africa and in other parts of the global south. So 2022, unfortunately, was not the year when this happened. We saw that the global north again stroke against these kind of initiatives and they really held strong in defending the interest of big pharma companies of their profits instead of siding with the people of the world and protecting their lives. So of course, you know, the big thing was that there were some, let us put it, minor things allowed when it came to access to vaccines. And this was done more or less from a humanitarian perspective and big pharma companies committing to this and to that to donating vaccine doses. But then backing up on those promises are not fulfilling them in the way that was foreseen. We had seen donations from global north countries going to the global south only to find out that the doses donated were near expiry. So they were impossible to use. So, you know, it wasn't really a good year for COVID-19 response. And unfortunately, it is wrapping up in the same way that it started. So now once the vaccines have made once the discussion about the vaccine has maybe toned down a bit and people are now turning to discussions that relate to COVID-19 medication and diagnostic testing. We are seeing the same thing repeating. So global north countries that at the discussions that WTO said that, okay, so let's do some steps forward when it comes to vaccines but not commit to the same when it comes to diagnostics and drugs. They are now walking back on their promise to reconsider this and to consider expanding the things that they have agreed upon for vaccines and to apply them when it comes to other kinds of medical products too. So they're very likely backing up on that and not actually doing anything to aid the response to a pandemic which is still ongoing. Yeah, and we'll of course wait for 2023 to see how that proceeds. Anna, but what you highlighted I think has been a sort of late motif in all of these shows that we've done. We were talking about the energy sector the other day with Pabir Pukhaisa and there too we found that the central theme was a focus on the interests of capital versus very starkly versus the needs of humanity at large of course, even when you're looking at within a country itself. And some of that approach has led to the outbreak of other communicable diseases and over the course of the year that we seem to have under control. Yeah, and of course it has impacted the progress that we wanted to make when it comes to diseases that have been here for a long time and that have caused millions and billions of deaths. So a couple of reports came out during 2022 including global reports on tuberculosis and on HAV8 and both of these reports show that there is virtually no progress when it comes to the targets that we want to achieve for a set year say 2025 or 2030. So these are the things that the global community has set us global public health priorities. It's very difficult to imagine progress and people fulfilling their right to health if we're not able to make any progress on these fronts. But now the reports are saying that we're nowhere near the target and we do have a very good idea why this is so. For example, investment in tuberculosis research and development has been staggering way way way behind what we wanted to see and what is needed to actually make progress. So the basically the diseases that are perceived as diseases of the poor as diseases that do not do not affect lives in the global north are still not prioritized by by the big pharma companies instead that they are they are turning to developing drugs the developing drugs that can be marketed again in Europe in the US that can be sold at a higher price. Then of course, you know, while we're talking about these things. I think we shouldn't forget to mention the social determinants of health which have worsened a lot this year as well. You know hunger has been one of the most talked about topics I guess for the last couple of months and the growth of hunger around the world, especially especially in Africa where millions of people are facing shortages of food and cannot you know, cannot access the very basics that they need to survive. And all of this is intertwined with some of the diseases that we thought we might have put under control in some places. For example, one of the most recent cholera outbreaks in Lebanon is an example of exactly this. So cholera is not you know, it's a disease that has a lot to do with living conditions if you don't have access to clean water. If you don't have access to facilities that allow you to process the food that you have to actually access food to boil the water, all of this puts you at risk. And if you know, we know that if these things are not under control then it's it's a very good indicator that people are living in very dire conditions. This is not only true for Lebanon, it's true also for the neighboring city of course. It's true for Haiti. It's true for the Democratic Republic of Congo. So in many places where we see conflicts intertwining with other crises and catastrophes, we are seeing warring results when it comes to communicable diseases and other diseases that we hoped would be eradicated by now. Over the past three years, Anna, Dr. Tedros and the WHO have become household names. And yet we've talked often on this show and elsewhere on People's Dispatch about how shackled the functioning of the World Health Organization itself is. If we can conclude this section with a little bit from you on how you see that process developing as the organization that has been globally mandated to determine our priorities as a species, I guess. How will any major developments expected on that front for the upcoming year? Well, this is an interesting question also because there is only a month to go until the next executive board of the WHO, which should happen in Geneva. And of course, People's Dispatch has covered what has been going on at the WHO for many years now. And unfortunately, it's pretty much always the same thing. We have a lack of funding. We have member states who are not ready to walk the talk as they like to put it and put their funds behind the programs that the WHO actually finds necessary to fulfill its duties. And then to blame the WHO for not fulfilling its duties because, well, who knows why. But so it's been an interesting year for the WHO, of course, because of the pandemic and because the agency launched the work on what is commonly now known as the pandemic treaty. And you know, the pandemic treaty is also something that's quite interesting that still causing quite a bit of interest in global health circles. It still makes headlines every time that the WHO meets or anything of the sort. But there are still questions open about how much this international treaty will be able to help the world in responding to future crisis as COVID-19. So, you know, many people, many activists have highlighted that what we need now is building a system that is based on solidarity, on international solidarity, on responsibility on the people who have caused most of the damage and who have profited most of the damage. There are spaces opening up. There are still pressures from progressive groups and attempts by progressive alternative groups, left-wing groups to take the WHO back to where it was before and to actually make it stand for the health for all that we know from Al-Malata. Yeah, and speaking of sort of that aspect of the broader public health systems, they are based, of course, on the work that is put in by those who are involved in building, keeping up that system, whether it's, you know, the Anandwadi and Asha workers in India and many other such organizations around the world that often at very low pay and in frontline situations like we saw during the pandemic, of course. Our working, despite the system, to make sure as many people as possible have access to at least some kind of healthcare. It was an active year for organized workers in the healthcare sector. Take us through some of that and also what you expect in the year to come. Yes, I think that's one of the most inspiring parts of the healthcare but also one that, you know, that calls to caution. Because we have seen different trends. So let's maybe let's start with the more negative ones. We have seen that, you know, health workers, especially health workers working under repressive regimes in conflict situations are still being targeted. So we have seen health activists in Palestine, in the Philippines, in the in the ERC being targeted, being persecuted, some of them being arrested, some of them being killed. So, you know, 2022 was the year when Shadda Odeh, a health activist from Palestine who's also a nurse, she was finally released from jail after spending almost a year in an Israeli prison because of some trumped up charges against one of the organizations that it's responsible and that provides essential healthcare to thousands of Palestinians. So these are thousands of people that would go without medical care if left to these Israeli occupying forces. We have seen health workers in the Philippines being red tagged and killed because of the work they do. So this is something that the world has to look at more more attentively in 2023 and make it a priority that health workers who put so much so much of their lives on the line for protecting people that, you know, they should have access to to the same amount of protection themselves. And it also ties in what we were talking about earlier because a majority of the workers in the healthcare sector are women, of course. Yes, yes, definitely. So and that's I think also a very good connection to to what's the positive side of it, you know, especially now as the year comes to a close, we have seen an enormous wave of strikes among health workers, especially nurses all around the world. So this is something that has been building up during the pandemic because, you know, if again, let's look back at 2020 when health workers were commanded for the work by people who were applauding them from windows and the same health workers already then saying that this was not enough that, you know, before the pandemic, they needed more and now during and after the pandemic, they will need even more. And so now we are actually facing the consequences of governments not reacting to the cause of health workers. We have seen a series of strikes. I think essentially in all parts of the world. So there recently there was a major strike in Minnesota by some 15,000 nurses currently in Europe. We are seeing one of the biggest, if not the first, the biggest strike of nurses in the British National Health Service who are fighting for a fair pay rise. We are hearing about announcements of strikes by doctors in Kenya. There have been actions by health workers in Argentina, in Brazil, in South Africa, in different parts of Europe. So, you know, you already mentioned that also South and Southeast Asia were also also places where where health workers took to the streets. And this is something that I hope is going to continue because it's the only way that's going to actually lead us lead us somewhere and lead us to better public health systems. So, you know, if we look at the nurses who are striking now in Britain, they have already received thousands of letters of support from many parts of the country, but also outside. So, you know, this is one, one other thing that provides hope is that the struggles that are taking place now, they're inspiring international solidarity. And so, people now, even in Europe are looking finally at the similarities in the health systems that they have and saying, okay, but so these similarities and the problems that we are experiencing, they come from the same place. So, let's work together and change, change, change those things. Right on that hopeful note and the call to change and I will bring to a close this episode of the show. We'll have you back with us. I'm sure very early in 2023 to talk more about some of these issues, of course. Thanks very much for your time today and hope you have a good close to the year and we'll see you very soon. And that like I was saying is a wrap for this public health roundup of 2022 from the team here at People's Dispatch and Daily Debrief. We'll be back, of course, tomorrow with another episode. Until then, we invite you to head to our website, peoplesdispatch.org for details on all of these stories, including some stories that Anna herself has written on the website, covering various aspects of public health and the movements around it. Also, invite you to give us a follow on the social media platform of your choice. Thank you very much for watching. Goodbye.