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The nonprofit has been called an “innovative public-private endeavour”, and one that likely would not have been possible without Dr Kerry’s insight into the complex mechanisms of both global health delivery and international policy.
She talked to The Telegraph last week at the sidelines of the 77th United Nations General Assembly on a sunny September day in Central Park.
Dr Kerry had an hour spare between back-to-back meetings with delegates from the African Union and various heads of state. We are interrupted by hordes of people eager to introduce themselves. The 45-year-old is instantly recognisable, afterall, with her father’s strong features, deep blue eyes and blonde hair neatly scraped back.
The embryonic concept for Seed came in a 2010 op-ed for the New York Times: Medical professionals could volunteer for year-long stints as teachers in countries that desperately needed healthcare workers, and in exchange a portion of their medical school loans would be repaid.
Back of the queue
Peace Corps loved the idea and today most of Seed’s programming runs through the volunteer service.
The focus is in Africa, which, as Dr Kerry tells me “bears 25 per cent of the world’s burden of disease yet has only three per cent of the world’s health workforce.”
For Dr Kerry, the global Covid-19 pandemic has been a startling reminder of the gaping inequality in global healthcare.
“Africa has been at the back of the queue for vaccines and these countries have been asked to manage the pandemic there, plus the ongoing epidemics of HIV, maternal mortality, tuberculosis, and noncommunicable diseases,” she says.
“But if you invest in the people that make up these health systems, they can actually not only manage a woman in childbirth, but they can – for example – diagnose Covid,” she says. “We’ve been training GPs in Zambia to use handheld ultrasounds to diagnose Covid when there are no tests.”
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