Global Health Matters

Dialogues is a series from the Global Health Matters podcast that includes interviews with some of the world’s sharpest global health minds and brightest thinkers. The goal of each Dialogue is to go beyond the echo chambers that exist in global health and to have in-depth conversations with guests who have explored global health issues from their multi-disciplinary perspectives.
In this episode of Dialogues, host Garry Aslanyan speaks with Daisy Hernández about her personal experience with Chagas disease and the journey she undertook to understand it while writing her book. Daisy is an essayist, memoirist and journalist. Her work focuses on the intersections of race, ethnicity, immigration, class and sexuality. She is the author of “The Kissing Bug: A true story of a family, an insect and a nation’s neglect of a deadly disease” (Tin House, 2021), which won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and was named a top 10 nonfiction book of 2021 by Time magazine. This conversation reminds us, as global health professionals, to go beyond our public health silos and to present our work in a way that motivates experts, policy-makers and lay audiences towards greater action.
Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.

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Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  

All content © 2026 Global Health Matters.

In global health, control means keeping a disease in check and accepting that some cases will remain. Zero is a different proposition altogether: it demands that every village, every community and every child is equally worth reaching. Only smallpox has ever been eradicated, and the diseases closest to that line are held back by conflict, funding pressure and fading public memory. So what does it take to lead an effort all the way to zero? How is commitment sustained across decades and changing governments? And what happens the day after certification, when the vector remains and imported cases still arrive?
In this episode, host Garry Aslanyan explores these questions with two guests who bring deeply complementary perspectives. Dr Jamal Ahmed is WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office Director for Polio Eradication and former Chair of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative's Strategy Committee, and has spent his career in polio eradication, from surveillance and laboratory systems to programme implementation. And joining him is Dr Stephen Vreden, Chair of the Committee for the Prevention of Re-establishment of Malaria in Suriname. The country was certified malaria-free by WHO in June 2025, the first country in the Amazon region to reach that milestone.
Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.

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Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  

All content © 2026 Global Health Matters.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming health systems, creating new opportunities to improve disease surveillance, diagnostics and decision-making. Yet as AI becomes more integrated into healthcare, important questions remain. How do we ensure these technologies are designed responsibly? How can they strengthen health systems without reinforcing existing inequalities? And what role should communities play in shaping the AI solutions intended to serve them?
In this episode of Guiding Research, Chaitali Sinha, Senior Programme Specialist in the Global Health Division at Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), speaks with Dr. Rose-Mary Owusuaa Mensah Gyening, Senior Lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana.
Drawing on her work developing responsible AI for vector-borne disease surveillance, Dr. Gyening discusses how artificial intelligence can support stronger health systems when communities are involved from the outset. The conversation explores why trust, transparency and inclusion are essential to responsible AI, how citizen science can improve health interventions, and why technology should strengthen-not replace-the people and systems at the heart of healthcare.
In this episode
Responsible AI and health systems 
Community participation and citizen science 
Trust, ethics and data governance 
AI for disease surveillance and preparedness 
Building inclusive and equitable digital health solutions 
This episode forms part of the Guiding Research podcast series, produced by Global Health Matters in collaboration with Health Systems Global (HSG). The series explores the themes of the Health Systems Research (HSR) 2026 Symposium and brings together leading voices in health policy and systems research.
* HSG’s involvement in the production of these podcast episodes was supported by IDRC.
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Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  

All content © 2026 Global Health Matters.

The Safeguarding Health in Conflict coalition recently published a report that documented 232 health workers killed, more than 700 incidents where health facilities were damaged and almost 300 health personnel kidnapped in 2022. 
This episode dives into the circumstances and risks health workers face in conflict settings. Host Garry Aslanyan speaks to a health worker who has been on the frontline of recent conflict in Sudan. Their testimony is discussed with Susannah Sirkin, former Director of Policy at Physicians for Human Rights, and Samer Jabbour, a cardiologist who has worked in the area of conflict in health since war broke out in his home country of Syria.
Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.

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Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  

All content © 2026 Global Health Matters.

Across more than four decades, HIV has driven some of the most remarkable scientific progress — and most powerful activism — that global health has ever seen. Today, ending AIDS is within reach. Yet funding is being cut and political priorities are shifting. As the response shifts from emergency footing toward long-term, chronic care, what risks are being left behind? In this episode, host Garry Aslanyan explores this question and more with two guests who bring deeply complementary perspectives. Magda Robalo is a public health physician and President and co-founder of the Institute for Global Health and Development, who has served as Guinea-Bissau’s Minister of Health and as WHO Director of Communicable Diseases. And joining her is Marina Vergueiro, a Brazilian activist, filmmaker, poet and co-founder of LUSO+, the Lusophone Network of People Living with HIV, who has lived with HIV since 2012 and is one of Brazil's most outspoken voices for dignity and mental health in the HIV response.

Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.

Subscribe to the Global Health Matters podcast newsletter. 
 
Follow us for updates:
@TDRnews on X
TDR on LinkedIn
@ghm_podcast on Instagram
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Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  

All content © 2026 Global Health Matters.