Health Check

In Senegal there are a range of measures to help people living with disabilities enter the workforce, however overcoming attitudes is still a major issue. And we look at the impact of shoes on our physical health, it’s not just feet but bones and joints in the legs and spine that can be affected by our footwear. With Khadidiatou Cisse, Saida Swaleh and Priscilla Ngethe.

Claudia talks to her guest Dr Ann Robinson about a new study from the University of Glasgow in the UK that suggests the virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the Covid virus out of the body's cells. Some viruses are known to compete in order to be the one that causes an infection and researchers have discovered that it appears cold-causing rhinovirus trumps coronavirus. The benefi...

In Nigeria we meet someone who finds that swimming can help alleviate her depression and we discuss how self-esteem as well as diet can impact a new mothers’ ability to breastfeed. With Pricilla Ngethe, Milly Akeyo and Charles Mgbolu.

As further European countries announce precautionary suspension of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine over fears it may have caused blood clots in a very small number of people, Claudia talks to BBC Health Editor James Gallagher about what the data really tells us about the safety of this vaccine. Tanzania and Covid. Claudia talks to BBC Africa Correspondent Leila Nathoo about Covid in Tanzania. Presi...

As the roll out of vaccines across Africa gathers pace we look to the future, how vaccination may help ease travel restrictions and ways to convince those still reluctant to get vaccinated. We also look at diabetes, the disease is more common than we might think affecting a wide range of people. With Rhoda Odhiambo, Anne Mawathe and Priscilla Ngethe.

A significant proportion of sufferers of Long Covid are reporting that their symptoms lessen or disappear completely after receiving a coronavirus vaccination. At the moment, the evidence is just anecdotal but doctors and researchers are intrigued. Claudia talks to New York infectious disease doctor Daniel Griffin who estimates that more than a third of his patients are getting some relief followi...

When it comes to mending broken bones or rectifying the eye problems caused by the disease Trachoma, what place does traditional medicine have? Many people would choose traditional medicine practitioners over conventional doctors and hospitals. However herbalism and spiritual belief are poor substitutes when surgery is needed. Can these two very different approaches be reconciled for the benefit o...

Health Check looks into issues around Covid-19 vaccination and pregnant women. Harvard researcher Julia Wu has just done a global survey of attitudes of pregnant women about being vaccinated against Covid-19. Acceptance is highest in low and middle income countries such as India and Latin America. The greatest levels of reluctance were in the US and Russia. Pfizer has started the first trial of a...

We’re looking at why levels of blood donation in Africa are so low compared with other parts of the world. From Nigeria we hear about hospitals having to ask patients and family members to give blood to ensure there is enough for their relatives if they require treatment. From Somalia we look at how the continuing violence and unrest has brought into sharp focus the need for an organised system of...

Health Check discusses Long Covid with Nishi Chaturvedi, professor clinical epidemiology at University College London, and Dr Shamil Haroon, family doctor and public health researcher at the University of Birmingham. They’ve both begun big research projects on what Long Covid is, what causes it and how best to treat patients. We also hear from two people whose lives have transformed for the worse...

We’re looking at a health issue that disproportionately affects black women - Uterine fibroids. These are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the womb. There is little research on what causes fibroids or how to prevent them. Azeezat Olaoluwa, BBC News Women’s Affairs journalist based in Lagos, has been investigating. And the findings from a small study in South Africa on a leading Covi...

Claudia talks to Dr Lucia Chambal at the Central Hospital of Maputo in Mozambique. She is helping to coordinate the response of the country’s largest hospital to an ongoing surge in new Covid patients. In the last three weeks, they’ve had to create more than new 150 beds to accommodate these patients, including erecting large tents to act as Covid wards in the hospital grounds. Dr Chambal talks ab...

Infections caused by germs which have become resistant to the medicines used to treat them pose a great threat to people’s health, as curable diseases become untreatable. Unregulated medicine dispensation and improper cleaning and sanitation at hospitals can all contribute to the spread of resistant germs. Overuse of antibiotics in animal rearing can also contribute, although this is less prevalen...

The South African government has decided to pause its roll-out of the Astrazeneca-Oxford vaccine because of disappointing results of the vaccine’s effectiveness against the most common variant in the country in a trial of young people. And is there any good evidence from trials elsewhere that this vaccine reduces the chances of people spreading the coronavirus to others, as well as preventing seve...

So far five African counties have begun vaccination campaigns, with vaccines gifted to them by wealthier countries. For many of the continent’s 1.2 billion people Covid -19 vaccinations will come through the COVAX initiative, which is a programme designed to reach many of the poor and vulnerable across the world. Whilst this is a huge task, Africa does have the advantage of having developed effect...

Claudia Hammond discusses the latest influx of excellent Covid-19 vaccine results with Sarah Boseley, health editor of The Guardian. Dr Samara Linton reports on efforts by black doctors in the UK to overcome vaccine hesitancy in their communities. The Biden administration is to rescind the USA’s Mexico City Policy which denies federal aid funding to organisations overseas that provide abortion cou...

The Brazilian city of Manaus remains in a state of crisis as its second surge of Covid-19 cases continues to overwhelm its hospitals and kill hundreds of people every day. Dr Marcus Lacerda, a clinical researcher at the FioCruz Institute talks to Claudia about the city’s medical oxygen supply shortage and why the coronavirus has caused even more suffering during this second surge of cases. One of...

After the first few days of India’s Covid mass vaccination programme rollout, Claudia talks to medical ethicist and health policy expert Anant Bhan about the issues arising from the lack of efficacy data for one of the two vaccines. Will they undermine confidence in this gargantuan public health exercise? Cindy Sui reports from Taiwan about a recent increase in the number of suicides among student...

BBC global health correspondent Naomi Grimley joins Claudia Hammond for a round-up of the latest developments in Covid vaccines and their rollouts – including the World Health Organisation’s Director General who has admonished richer countries and pharma companies for undermining the chances of access to vaccines for all countries. Plus a controversial vaccine rollout in India and the Iranian lead...

Claudia Hammond talks to Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley exactly one year after she and Claudia first talked on Health Check about a mysterious respiratory disease that had appeared in Wuhan in China – with 59 cases reported at that point. What have been the highs and lows of the world’s response to the coronavirus so far? Alison van Diggelen reports from the USA on research which has found t...

Claudia Hammond explores how children think with two psychologists; Dr Victoria Simms from Ulster University who researches how children’s understanding of maths develops and Professor Teresa McCormack from Queens University Belfast who researches how children understand time. The discussion was recorded in front of an audience at the Northern Ireland Science Festival in February 2020. Presenter:...

Have you lost a loved one who is still a part of your life in some way? Did it leave you feeling confused or frozen about how to continue with life? Claudia Hammond examines the distressing phenomenon known as ambiguous loss – the enormous challenge of dealing with a loss when you aren’t sure what has happened, leaving you searching for answers, unable to move on. What has the pandemic done to our...

Iran was one of the first countries to be hit hard by the coronavirus. In the first population wide survey of infection rates in a Middle Eastern country, Iranian medical researchers now estimate that about one in five people on average were infected during its first wave in 18 cities in the country. But the rate varies enormously from city to city. In the city of Rasht, they estimate more than 70...

Are genetic therapies for sickle cell disease beginning to come of age? Claudia Hammond talks to David Williams and Erica Esrick of Boston Children’s Hospital about their promising results with a gene therapy for the disease in a pilot trial involving six young patients. Their report appears in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine alongside encouraging results of a CRISPR gene...

In the week of World AIDS Day, Health Check looks at what's being described as a milestone in the prevention of HIV infection in women. It is a form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) - an injection every 8 weeks of a drug called cabotegravir. A clinical trial has been comparing it to a daily PrEP pill which is already known to be effective at preventing HIV infection. The injection regimen was ab...