Publications

For many decades, the Netherlands Society for Tropical Medicine and International Health (NVTG) has provided training in the Netherlands to doctors aspiring to work in low- and middle-income countries. Over the years, the training has professionalized, resulting in the formal recognition, in 2012, of the ‘doctor International Health and Tropical Medicine’ (doctor IHTM) as a medical specialization, by the Dutch Royal Medical Association (KNMG). In addition, the Commission for the Registration of Medical Specialists (RGS) recognized the Institute of International Health and Tropical Medicine (IGT), which oversees the implementation of the post-graduate specialization programme. This commission extended IGT’s accreditation up to 2021. However, the approval was not unconditional and stipulated modernization and an overhaul of the curriculum to better
align it with the training programme.

With a maternal mortality ratio of 789 per 100,000 live births, and a contraceptive prevalence rate of 4.7%, South Sudan has one of the worst reproductive health situations in the world. Understanding the social norms around sexuality and reproduction, across different ethnic groups, is key to developing and implementing locally appropriate public health responses.

YES I DO. is a strategic alliance of five Dutch organizations which main aim is to enhance the decision making space of young women about if, when and whom to marry as well as if, when and with whom to have children.

Iran has enjoyed a universal coverage of primary healthcare services since 1990s, due to the effective health system structure. However, chronic maldistribution of secondary care services and hospital beds compounded with financial barriers to such services have been a continuing challenge. As a consequence of the “Universal Health Insurance Act” in 1994, several initiatives have been conducted to increase population coverage and/or financial protection from healthcare costs. As a result, Iran’s population benefits from a high healthcare insurance coverage, estimated at about 83% of the population in 2010. It is now believed that over 95% of the population is under one sort of health insurance coverage as a result of an ambitious health transformation plan starting in 2014.

Rural agricultural advisory services to facilitate farmers’ access to information have made a remarkable comeback on the international development agenda. After years of neglect, much attention has recently been devoted to the emergence of pluralistic service systems (PSS), in which advisory services are provided by different actors and funded from different sources. Private companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and producer organizations (POs) today play more active roles alongside traditional public sector providers.

In South Sudan, women disproportionately bear the burden of morbidity and mortality related to sexual and reproductive health, with a maternal mortality ratio of 789 deaths per 100,000 live births

Most armed conflicts over the past decades have been characterised by prolonged civil strife, disproportionally affecting the civil population. Displacement, affected livelihoods, deteriorated health status and economic decline are only some of the consequences. Morbidity and mortality may increase substantially, due to the direct effects of warfare, but often predominantly due to indirect effects as a result of deteriorating determinants of health, including malnutrition, increased epidemic risks, and declines in preventive and curative health services. The government, usually party to the conflict, is often not able or willing to protect its citizens.

A growing variety of public and private rural advisory services (Box 1) are available today, leading to increasingly “pluralistic service systems” (PSS), where advisory services are provided by different actors and funded from different sources (Wongtschowski et al., 2013). This is generally regarded as an important step forwards, away from reliance on monolithic, mostly state-led service systems.

Knowledge of risk factors and their relative importance in different settings is essential to develop effective health education material for the prevention of typhoid. In this study, we examine the effect of household level and individual behavioural risk factors on the risk of typhoid in three Indonesian islands (Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Papua) in the Eastern Indonesian archipelago encompassing rural, peri-urban and urban areas.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the greatest burden of HIV with 25 million people living with HIV by the end of 2012 . Knowledge of HIV status is imperative for prevention and timely start of HIV care [2–4]. About 30 % of people in sub-Saharan countries have never been tested for HIV. To achieve universal HIV testing, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends provider initiated testing and counselling (PITC) to facilitate timely diagnosis and access to HIV related services.

In LMICs, Community Health Workers (CHW) increasingly play health promotion related roles involving ‘Empowerment of communities’. To be able to empower the communities they serve, we argue, it is essential that CHWs themselves be, and feel, empowered. We present here a critique of how diverse national CHW programs affect CHW’s empowerment experience.

YES I DO. is a strategic alliance of five Dutch organizations which main aim is to enhance the decision making space of young people about if, when and whom to marry as well as if, when and with whom to have children.

This publication outlines an alternative route to achieving sustainable economic development and food security in developing areas. Rather than on high-value, niche export markets for tropical products which attract a lot of attention, we want to focus on local and regional commodity markets. It is our intention to show how important these markets are for smallholders, and how vibrant and well-functioning markets can improve food security for both smallholder families and consumers at the regional and national level. Through several illustrative cases, this book highlights how various organisations are working to improve smallholder access to local and regional markets. They seek to realise this by helping farmers achieve higher productivity and production volumes as well as by working to improve marketing and provide stable economic development based on local conditions. The stories of small-scale producers are embedded in a theoretical framework, and by combining theoretical analysis and practical know-how, we aim to demonstrate the real potential of these ‘regional markets’ for promoting sustainable economic development and food security.

The recent thematic series on close-to-community providers published in this journal brings together 14 papers from a variety of contexts and that use a range of research methods. The series clearly illustrates the renewed emphasis and excitement about the potential of close-to-community (CTC) providers in realising universal health coverage and supporting the sustainable development goals. This editorial discusses key themes that have emerged from this rich and varied set of papers and reflect on the implications for evidence-based programming. We are at a critical stage in the development of CTC programming and policy which requires the creation and communication of new knowledge to ensure the safety, sustainability, quality and accessibility of services, and their links with both the broader health system and the communities that CTCs serve.

The aim of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) is to suppress plasma human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral load (VL) to undetectable levels. The usual median time to achieve full viral suppression is about 100 days. Most HIV patients, both in high-income and in resource-poor countries, also display an immunological response to treatment, measured as an increase in CD4 count. In 14–25% of patients CD4 count does not rise substantially
despite successful viral suppression. This phenomenon has been referred to as an immunological discordant treatment response

YES I DO. is a strategic alliance of five Dutch-based organizations which main aim is to enhance the decision making space of young people about if, when and whom to marry as well as if, when and with whom to have children.

In recent years, social protection has climbed up the policy agenda as a major policy response to chronic poverty and vulnerability with positive impacts on food security, income and access to basic services. In SubSaharan Africa, persistent levels of poverty and inequality, unemployment and underemployment, and a high degree of labour market informality have encouraged governments to adopt social protection as a key instrument for achieving inclusive development (Miroro, 2015). Its ability to achieve inclusive development is largely due to its catalytic role in redistribution and potential to reach the poorest (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015; Olivier, 2013). Inclusive development here is defined as a ‘pattern and pace in which the poor and most vulnerable groups participate and which is characterised by income growth, increase of productive employment as well as decreasing inequality in both income and non-income dimensions of wellbeing’ (NWO, 2014).