The Navajo Nation's Health Disparities and Africa's Resilience
November 24, 2023
Editor's Note
Happy Thanksgiving to our readers who celebrate. The holiday has a complicated legacy for American Indian and Alaskan Native people. This week, in our first piece, we speak with Jennie Wei, a physician in Gallup, New Mexico, about her work with the Indian Health Service, how her patients struggled and came together against COVID-19, and the many ways the pandemic changed her reservation community.
Next, Jendayi Frazer, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses Africa post-COVID-19. The pandemic exposed the fragility of supply chains in the region, especially regarding vaccines, but Frazer notes it also has provided the motive and opportunity to establish the more resilient supply chains needed to tap Africa's young growing market.
Continuing the coverage of Africa, our final group of authors examines the "brain drain" in West Africa—the recruitment of health workers away from the region to staff wealthier nations' clinics and hospitals. Nigeria alone lost three thousand health-care workers to other nations during the pandemic.
As always, thank you for reading.—Thomas J. Bollyky, Editor
