Ebola, polio, HIV: it’s dangerous to mix healthcare and foreign policy | Sophie Harman
▻http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/aug/14/ebola-polio-hiv-healthcare-foreign-policy
recent revelations from Cuba – where it was revealed that the US Agency for International Development (#USAid) had used #HIV_prevention work as a smokescreen for fomenting political opposition – should ignite a debate about the necessity of keeping the work of public health agencies, security services and foreign policy separate. (...)
The so-called “#securitisation” of healthcare is not new. (...)
In #Pakistan, #CIA operatives masqueraded as #polio vaccinators to gain greater access to Osama bin Laden’s compound. (...)
The ability of western governments and agencies to act as emergency providers of healthcare, and as honest brokers, will be increasingly reduced unless we agree that the provision of healthcare should be sacrosanct and protected from motives best realised by other means.
The “blue water” between global health and international security continues to narrow, as the UK foreign and commonwealth office encroaches further on the Department for International Development. Meanwhile, the US state department continues to treat USAid as an extension of its operations.
