Hope, horror and Covid-19: my 23 years as the Guardian ’s health correspondent | Sarah Boseley

I ’ve travelled the world covering everything from HIV to MMR to Ebola… and then Covid came along. These are stories that changed me – and the worldShe was tall, wrapped in a green patterned dress that clung to her legs and ended just above dusty flip-flops. In the bustling, sweltering market, Grace Mathanga looked at me appraisingly, as if to say: “What have we here?” And I knew she was the one.It was the end of2002. I had flown to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, with excitement in my heart and fear of failure eating at my gut. I ’d been the Guardian’s health correspondent for a couple of years, and had written some big stories: about the Bristol babies inquiry into the deaths of small children during operations carried out by inadequate surgeons; about suicides on antidepressants, and fake cures for cancer. And I had ha rried the pharmaceutical industry over their prices and compromising payments to doctors. But now I had been dispatched to Africa in pursuit of an idea dreamed up by the then Guardian editor,Alan Rusbridger, a story with the potential to help save thousands of lives – if I could pull it off.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Health Coronavirus Aids and HIV Infectious diseases Vaccines and immunisation Society Ebola Africa Epidemics World news Global health Global development Campaigning journalism Newspapers & magazines Media Source Type: news