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Tue, 09/30/2025 - 09:26
96 Global Health NOW: A New Vaccine for the Meningitis Belt; How Early Unions Endanger Girls; and Bologna Slows Downand Sparks a Showdown September 30, 2025 A New Vaccine for the Meningitis Belt    A century of meningitis outbreaks across a wide strip of sub-Saharan Africa may be dramatically reduced thanks to a new vaccine that prevents the lethal disease.  
  • Outbreaks from Senegal to Ethiopia have claimed tens of thousands of lives every few years.  
How will the new vaccine help? Men5CV targets the five Neisseria meningitidis bacteria that cause most epidemic meningitis across the belt. Bacteria can infect the meninges (the lining that surrounds the brain and spinal cord) and kill within hours, if untreated.  
  • The vaccine has been distributed in Niger and Nigeria and will roll out in other countries soon.  
  • Men5CV, developed by Indias Serum Institute of India and the Seattle-based PATH, is expected to cost $3 per dose. 
Why is there a meningitis belt? Dust storms across the region can cause sand and dust to damage peoples airways, allowing bacteria to enter the bloodstream and then lead to new infections of close contacts. 
  The Quote: Its a powerful new weapon that, with wider rollout, has the potential to protect millions of vulnerable people, said the University of Southamptons Michael Head. 
    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Hospitalized COVID-19 patients who inhaled heparin were half as likely to require ventilation and had a significantly lower risk of dying compared with those receiving standard care, of data from ~500 patients across six countries.

A new, affordable human papillomavirus test delivers results in less than an hour with no specialized laboratory required, led by Rice University, in collaboration with colleagues in Mozambique and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.     More than 99% of people suffering first-time heart attacks, strokes, or heart failure also had at least one of four risk factors for cardiovascular disease: suboptimal high blood pressure, cholesterol, or blood glucose, or smoking, a far higher prevalence of warning signs than previous studies found.  
  Opioid use disorder diagnoses among commercially insured U.S. patients soared ~40% post-pandemicfrom 386 patients per 100,000 in 2021 to 539 patients per 100,000 in 2024, ; the hardest-hit states were Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Delaware.     U.S. and Global Health Policy News Trumps USAID pause stranded lifesaving drugs. Children died waiting.     Fragile N.C. Residents Lose Medicaid Support for Food and Housing Health     HHS would furlough nearly 32,500 in shutdown      Researchers are relieved at Trumps likely pick for National Cancer Institute

Energy Dept. adds climate change and emissions to banned words list   

Cannabis stocks soar after Trump shares video promoting drugs use for seniors   CHILD MARRIAGE How Early Unions Endanger Girls    Child marriageboth formal and informalcontinues to harm millions of girls globally, , which drew from interviews with 250+ girls across 15 countries.     Even in countries with laws prohibiting child marriage, there are few protections against cohabitations or informal marriages, .  
  • The report found that a significant number of girls in early unions face intimate partner violence and have lost access to education or employment. 
Lack of agency: The most common reasons girls in the study said they married young were economic hardship, familial pressure, and cultural norms.    Breakthrough in Bolivia: Bolivia has banned all marriages and unions under age 18 with no exceptions, in a major victory for girls rights, . Previously, the law allowed for exceptions through parental or judicial authorization.
  Related: When I was married at 13 I was told refusal would end in my death. Now girls in Iraq as young as nine face the same fate    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ROAD SAFETY Bologna Slows Downand Sparks a Showdown     Last year, Bologna became Italys first major city to adopt a 30 km/h (19 mph) speed limit on most streets in an effort to reduce crashes, pollution, and noise. 
  • Crash deaths dropped significantly in 2024, and no pedestrian deaths were recorded.  
However, the policy drew fierce opposition from conservative national leaders, who argued that the limit created a burden on industries that rely on drivers and have since moved to block enforcement and pursue legal challenges against the local policy. 
  Unclear future: Enforcement gaps and national pushback have weakened the policys impact, advocates say, and crash fatalities rose again in 2025. 
  • But other Italian citiesincluding Milan and Romehave now followed Bolognas lead, issuing their own slow-street policies.  
  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Halal concerns drive vaccine hesitancy as Indonesia fights measles outbreak

I wanted to be dead: Survivors of Assads prisons battle trauma and disease     Louisiana issues warrant for California doctor accused of mailing abortion pills     Ecuadorian scientists cleared of criminal charges in COVID-19 testing case      Mpox Outbreaks Expose Global Vulnerability As Smallpox Immunity Fades, Experts Warn     Gender differences in opioid and stimulant poisoning in the central region of Iran     Gaps in the global health research landscape for mpox      Want to do disruptive science? Include more rookie researchers   Issue No. 2796
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Categories: Global Health Feed

Mon, 09/29/2025 - 09:41
96 Global Health NOW: New Consensus to Tackle NCDsWithout the U.S.; Wrapping Babies in Malaria Protection; and Contraceptive Stigma in Sierra Leone September 29, 2025 Rural doctor Zhu Daqing (L) and another doctor measure a patient's blood pressure in Xinshui Village. Guizhou Province, China, July 19, 2023. Yang Wenbin/Xinhua via Getty New Consensus to Tackle NCDsWithout the U.S.    A UN declaration to address noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health will move forward with wide global support, despite being derailed by the U.S. at a High-Level General Assembly session, .     Broad support: The declaration sets 2030 targets for ongoing efforts in areas like tobacco reduction and hypertension control and introduces goals around mental health access for the first time, . The draft was widely supported by UN blocs, with leaders of countries like the Philippines saying the investment case is clear.  
  RFK Jr.s rejection: But the draft could not be adopted by consensus after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the country would reject the declaration. 
  • Kennedy said the declaration overreached while failing to address key health issuesthough he did not elaborate on those problems, . He also cited concerns over gender identity and abortion, though the declaration does not address either of those issues.  
  • The declaration will still be submitted for a vote at the UN General Assembly in October; advocates remain optimistic about its adoption without U.S. support.  
Critical components missing: Key tax measures on unhealthy products were weakened by corporate lobbying, .  
  • We saw specifically language changing from having countries implement health taxes to now have countries consider health taxes, and we saw the removal of targets, Mary-Ann Etiebet, president and CEO of Vital Strategies, (video). 
  • And air pollution goals omitted any mention of fossil fuels, which is like pledging to tackle smoking without mentioning tobacco, said the Clean Air Funds Jane Burston, . 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES DATA POINT

~3.3 million
漍漍漍漍漍漍
The number of lives saved around the world by American foreign aid in 2023.
  The Latest One-Liners   1,000+ children in Indonesia fell ill with food poisoning last week, bringing total cases to 6,000+ since Januaryin a spate of incidents tied to an ambitious push to deliver ~80 million free meals; President Prabowo Subianto defended the program today and announced steps to improve safety.      The U.S. FDA announced plans last Friday to review the safety of the abortion drug mifepristone, in a move that could lead to new dispensing restrictions.     A distinct form of diabetes with symptoms meeting neither type 1 nor type 2 criteria has been named type 5 diabetes by the International Diabetes Federation in a that urges other health entities to adopt the name for the condition, which could affect ~25 million people.     Flu in U.S. children is leading to more cases of severe encephalopathy and related deaths, ; the nation logged 280 pediatric flu deaths last yearthe deadliest apart from the H1N1 pandemic in 20092010as fewer children receive flu vaccines.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News Ebere Okereke: America First in Global Health: How Africa Should Respond      Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed Hostile to Cars     Completely shattered. Changes to NSFs graduate student fellowship spur outcry     White House considers funding advantage for colleges that align with Trump policies     Medical Groups Warn Against Visa Fees for Foreign Doctors  

WHO Staff in Geneva Call for Freeze in Layoffs and Independent Review of Downsizing Plans   MALARIA Wrapping Babies in a New Protection    Infants in Uganda spend much of their first two years carried snugly in cloth wraps called lesus. Such wraps could potentially provide even greater security against malaria once treated with mosquito repellent, .     Key findings: Among 400 pairs of moms and children who used baby wraps treated with permethrinan insecticide commonly sprayed on bed nets and clothesmalaria infections fell by ~65%, .  
  • The benefit held through 24 weeks, with fewer hospitalizations and no serious side effects. 
Wraps to address gaps: The wraps could offer low-cost protection for infants too young for vaccination.  
  • Theres a lot of the day when youre not under a net. Baby wraps fill in some of those gaps when a net isnt particularly helpful, author Ross Boyce .  
Thanks for the tip, Michael Macdonald!   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES Thanks for the tip, Dave Cundiff!  FAMILY PLANNING Contraceptive Stigma in Sierra Leone    Stigma around contraceptive implants in women is an ongoing barrier to family planning in Sierra Leone, even as the country seeks to improve reproductive health services.    No women spared: The stigma applies both to single women, who are expected to abstain from sex, and to married women, who are encouraged to embrace having children.  
  • Societal pressure has driven many girls to remove the implant or switch to less visible methods, said Eunice Dumbuya, an activist in Freetown.  
And yet: The country is seeing progress in access. Contraceptive prevalence is 24% for all women in Sierra Leone, .  
  • The country is part of the , which aims to make modern contraception available to all women and girls by 2030. 
 

Related: Why more Kenyan women are turning to IUDs for family planning   OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS They fled war and sexual violence and found a safe space in Athens. Then the aid cuts hit

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers were badly wounded in Gaza. Here's what saved them

The forgotten pandemic: Hong Kong influenza in Australia (19681970)

For Indigenous Infants, This Devastating Virus Finally Meets a Formidable Foe

Twenty-Five Years of Mifepristone: How Activists Brought the Abortion Pill to America and Changed Reproductive Health Forever

Nearly 7 in 10 COVID survivors tested didn't know they had a dulled sense of smell

Some people tape their mouths shut at night. Doctors wish they wouldnt Issue No. 2795
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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Categories: Global Health Feed

Thu, 09/25/2025 - 09:29
96 Global Health NOW: High Stakes, Shifting Landscapes on Climate Action; Nightmare Bacteria on the Rise; and Theyre Kind of a bIg Deal China, the worlds top emitter, pledged to cut emissions while U.S. sits on the sidelines at climate summit. September 25, 2025 People ride in heavily polluted fog on Wenhua West Road in Zaozhuang in China's Shandong province. January 3, 2024. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images  High Stakes, Shifting Landscapes on Climate Action    Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, the stakes could not be higher as global warming accelerates, leading scientists and UN officials warned world leaders convened at the UN General Assembly yesterday.  
  • 2024 was the first year global temperatures exceeded 1.5簞C, the Agreements critical thresholdleading to extreme weather disasters and worsening health and infrastructure challenges in communities across the globe, .  
Intervention still possible: If countries cooperate to transition to clean energy sources and eliminate food system waste, the under-1.5簞C goal can still be reached, scientists said. And yesterday, most of the worlds leading powers signaled they were willing to do that, , which provided a rundown of where major players stand.  
  • We need new plans for 2035 that go much further, and much faster, said UN Secretary-General Ant籀nio Guterres.  
New plans submitted: Ahead of COP30 in Brazil in November, 47 countries submitted updated climate plans, but big emitters like the EU and India have yet to show their new plans.     China makes a modestbut pivotalpledge: The worlds top emitter pledged to cut emissions by 7%10% by 2035 and expand clean energy, aiming for over 30% non-fossil fuel use. The relatively small goal could still be transformative globally, experts said.  
U.S. on the sidelines: The U.S. did not participate in the summit, with President Donald Trump roundly dismissing climate action as a green scam, . Other global leaders appeared undeterred, with the EUs climate commissioner saying the bloc would do the exact opposite of what the U.S. is doing.  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
90% of global research and development funding is being spent on universities, nonprofits, and government agencies in high-income countries, ; while that money is directed to solve problems such as neglected diseases in LMICs, just 10% of the funding is going directly to LMICs themselves.     A potential treatment for leishmaniasis has been identified in compounds found in Okinawan marine sponges, which effectively killed the disease-causing parasite while sparing human cells, ; researchers are hopeful the treatment could also be used against other protozoan diseases.     Over one-third of hospital-acquired infections involved drug-resistant bacteria, that drew on 34 hospital-based studies involving 20,658 patients across 18 countries.     Basic services in health facilitiesincluding reliable water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management, and electricityhave improved in 100+ countries that have made unprecedented efforts; however, billions are still served by facilities without those essential features.   ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE Nightmare Bacteria on the Rise    Infections from drug-resistant nightmare bacteria spiked ~70% in the U.S. between 2019 and 2023, .    Driving the increase: bacteria with the NDM gene, a resistance gene that makes treating infections extremely difficult.  
  • Once rare, NDM-related infections rose 460%, with 1,800+ cases in 2023 across 29 reporting states. But that is likely only a partial picture, researchers say.   
  • The rise of NDMs in the U.S. is a grave danger and very worrisome, said David Weiss, an infectious disease researcher at Emory University.  
Possible COVID link: Heavy antibiotic use during the pandemic may have fueled resistance.      GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES VACCINES New Protections for Newborns    Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of newborn sepsis, meningitis, and lifelong disabilitiescausing 400,000 infections, 91,000 infant deaths, and 46,000 stillbirths annually, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.     Yet it has long flown under the radar. It is often undetected in pregnancy, carried by 15% of women without symptoms.  
  • While testing and antibiotic protocols have become standard in high-income countries, many cases go undetected worldwide.  
Vaccines on the horizon: A long-awaited maternal vaccine from Pfizer is now in phase 3 trials, and another vaccine from Danish company MinervaX is also under development.  
  • There has been incredible progress. But it has taken so long, said physician Carol Baker, who proposed a GBS vaccine in 1976.  
  ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Theyre Kind of a bIg Deal     Its . Sciences .      Its the Ig Nobels, the prize for research that makes people laugh, then think. And year after year, it does.      Its hard to pick a favorite from this years roster of ridiculousness. Some top choices investigate pressing issues like: 
  • The growth rate of  
  • Whether   
  • 郭勳堝硃娶餃莽  
  • Alcohols impact on and how well humans  
The honors were presented in a that grumbled with entertainment, including research explained in 24 seconds, an operatic ode to gastroenterology, and paper planes pelting winners.     We cant all win bIg, but can we at least be invited to the party?  QUICK HITS EU, WHO counter Trump's warnings on autism and pregnancy     Sexually transmitted disease cases fall, but not syphilis in newborns  
Phase 1 trial finds high dose of malaria monoclonal antibody is safe, elicits immune response     New European Partnership on One Health AMR: 253 million for research and innovation against antimicrobial resistance     Harvard Dean Was Paid $150,000 as an Expert Witness in Tylenol Lawsuits   What to Know About MMR and MMRV Vaccines  
  The rare disease that stops us feeling fear   Issue No. 2794
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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Categories: Global Health Feed

Wed, 09/24/2025 - 09:50
96 Global Health NOW: A Surge of Diseases in Sudan; Centering Youth and Mental Health at UNGA; and Firearm Suicides Among Older Americans September 24, 2025 Patients receive treatment in the cholera isolation center at the refugee camps of western Sudan. Tawila, Darfur, August 14. AFP via Getty A Surge of Diseases in Sudan   In war-ravaged Sudan, medics are fighting their own multifront war against a surge of diseases overwhelming the countrys devastated health infrastructure, .     Malaria, typhoid, and dengue are all on the rise amid the countrys rainy seasonespecially in Khartoum, which reported 5,000+ cases of those diseases and dozens of deaths in the past month.  
  • Khartoum states health ministry recorded 14,012 dengue cases since January 2024, . Mobile clinics have been deployed throughout the region.   
Cholera has spread to all 18 states of Sudan, with 113,600+ cases and 3,000+ deaths nationwide. Darfur is particularly affected, reporting a high fatality rate, .  
  • The WHO has launched a vaccination campaign in the worst-hit areas, after weeks battling access, transport and logistical challenges, The campaign aims to protect 1.86 million people, especially children, who are disproportionately affected. 
Hospitals are overcrowded and struggling to treat patients amid medicine and equipment shortages. 
  • In conflict-affected areas, 70% of hospitals are non-operational; half of Khartoums hospitals have been destroyed.  
Related: Sudanese children face forced recruitment, sexual violence in war, official says   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Afghanistans malaria case count rose 21%+ from July to August, with ~13,000 infections, which also notes declining but still-high caseloads of other diseases including respiratory infections, diarrhea, and measles, and warns that the August 31 earthquake has further taxed already overloaded health services.
  Consuming alcohol in any amount raises dementia risk, ; the findings also challenge the notion that low levels of alcohol are neuroprotective.     Childhood exposure to chemicals in plastic household items has been linked to long-term health risks, that found that three commonly used classes of chemicalsphthalates, bisphenols, and PFAScan be tied to ongoing conditions like heart disease, asthma, infertility, and obesity, especially when encountered early in life.     A study linking apple cider vinegar to weight loss has been retracted by The BMJ Group; the study claimed drinking diluted apple cider vinegar could lead to dramatic weight loss, but a later investigation found irregularities in the data and that the results could not be replicated.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News Death by aid cuts: how a decision in the US led to the loss of a mother in Yemen  
The nation where Trumps aid cuts are colliding with a deadly Ebola outbreak: What we feared has now happened     Trumps tough it out to pregnant women meets wave of opposition by medical experts     Trump says Cuba has virtually no autism. Thats news to Cuban doctors  

White House slashes medical research on monkeys and other animal testing, sparking fierce new debate GHN EXCLUSIVE Teenage girls planting a tree near homes destroyed by floods along the bank of the Mathare River. Nairobi, Kenya, June 5, 2024. Boniface Muthoni/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Centering Youth at the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health
Tomorrow, for the first time, mental health will be at the heart of a UN meeting involving all member states at the heads of state levelpresenting an opportunity to make mental health, and specifically young peoples mental health, an economic and moral priority, .     At the UN High-Level Meeting on the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, taking place tomorrow in New York, governments will make political and financial commitments to mental healthbut the negotiations to shape the outcomes have been underway for months.     The draft political declaration calls on all UN member states to take steps including: 
  • Scaling up services, support, and treatment for mental health conditions. 
  • Improving suicide prevention measures and addressing mental health stigma. 
  • Regulating harmful digital environments in a way that protects young peoples rights.    
To improve young peoples lives around the world, these words need to be translated into action, the authors saysharing examples of partnerships like the Being Initiative, a global, multistakeholder effort to promote investment in mental health led by Grand Challenges Canada, with partners including Science for Africa Foundation, Fondation Botnar, United for Global Mental Health, Orygen, and the UKs Department for Health. 
     GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES GUNS Firearm Suicides Among Older Americans    Gun suicides among Americans ages 70+ have risen steadily from 2009 to 2023, claiming 63,836 lives over that period, finds a new analysis of CDC data. 
  • The trend worries researchers, as the demographic makes up a growing share of the U.S. population.  
Behind the uptick: A range of factors impacting older people: severe illness, isolation, lack of mental health support, financial pressures, and easy access to firearms.  
  • The U.S. among older adults than Mexico or Canada, which have stricter gun laws. 
Most at risk: Older white men in rural areas.     Possible interventions: Doctors can do more to assess their older patients mental health and connect them to resources, say advocates. Gun sellers can also provide screening and resources.       OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Decades after they endured forced contraception, Greenlandic women still suffer from the trauma
  Toxic Air in Tanzanias Port City Threatens Millions, Researchers Warn     Two new studies predict results of declining MMR uptake, restricting non-medical vaccine exemptions     Endemicity, disability and neglect: Leprosy in Colombia 20072020     Officials, doctors urge vaccination amid 'concerning' surge in Chicago mpox cases     Chicago Has Hundreds of Thousands of Toxic Lead Pipesand Millions of Unspent Dollars to Replace Them      The wellness industry needs to stop scaring people     Ethicists flirt with AI to review human research   Issue No. 2793
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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Categories: Global Health Feed

Tue, 09/23/2025 - 09:41
96 Global Health NOW: Trump Links Autism With Tylenol; Russias Infected Troops; and Nicotine-Free Vapes Not Free of Health Concerns September 23, 2025 President Trump (C) takes questions after making an announcement on significant medical and scientific findings for Americas children at the White House. September 22, Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik/Getty Trump Links Autism With Tylenol    President Trump dispensed dubious medical advice from the White House yesterday, telling pregnant women about a dozen times to avoid taking Tylenol (known as acetaminophen in the U.S., or paracetamol in most countries), the .     Trump told pregnant women to fight like hell not to take Tylenol, claiming the medication would increase the autism risk in their children, .      What does the evidence say? No definitive scientific evidence has linked Tylenol use by pregnant mothers with autism in their children, , though the FDA will be updating drug labels to advise that they avoid acetaminophen. 
  • An  in August that analyzed 46 previous studies found 27 had significant links between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders. 
  • However, study co-author Ann Bauer, a University of Massachusetts epidemiologist, told NPR the U.S. government may be jumping the gun, adding: I think those of us in the research community would like to see stronger evidence. 
Trump on vaccines: The president also advised spreading out vaccinations, overturning the current immunization schedule, , as heads of HHS, NIH, FDA, and Medicare/Medicaid stood behind him. 
  • Medical experts like New York University bioethicist Art Caplan said the presidents guidance was irresponsible.  
Related: The drug Trump plans to promote for autism shows real (and fragile) hope     GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Measles cases are up 31-fold in the Americas this year, , with 11,300+ confirmed infections and 23 deaths recorded in 10 countries as of mid-September compared to 358 cases for the same period last year, with 71% of cases in unvaccinated people; Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. accounted for 96% of cases.

Violence and abuse by patients against staff in GP clinics are widespread globally and usually triggered by long waiting times and providers refusal to prescribe requested drugs, analyzing 50 previous studies from 24 countries.

The Heritage Foundation urged the FBI to add a new designation to its list of domestic violent extremist groups for Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism, claiming violence from trans people and allies is increasing, although trans people make up less than 1% of mass shooters and are much more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence.

In China, AMR-attributable deaths in children under 5 declined by 95% over the past three decades but rose by 68% among people 65+, ; the authors attribute the mortality reduction in young children partially to pneumococcal vaccination and WASH efforts, and the increased mortality among older people to chronic health issues and weakened immune systems. THE QUOTE
  High blood pressure is like a battering ram. 漍漍漍漍漍漍漍漍 Tom Frieden, President/CEO, Resolve to Save Lives,  this morning on the toll of hypertension as every second of every day, the blood is slamming against the brain, heart, and kidneys.  
  INFECTIOUS DISEASES Russias Infected Troops    Russia has formed military units composed of soldiers with HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases, deploying them in segregated units on the front in eastern Ukraine. 
  • The troops are outfitted in armbands and bracelets that signal their illness.  
A growing crisis: The move speaks to a mounting health emergency within the Russian military, which is seeing surging cases of HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis.  
  • The number of Russian soldiers with HIV was 20X higher at the end of 2023 than it was at the start of the war.   
  • Infections have spread via syringes and other contaminated medical instruments used by Russian battlefield medics, as well as by rising drug use, say Ukrainian officials.  
Risk to Ukrainian troops: Ukrainian soldiers say they have received no guidance on interacting with wounded or killed Russian troops, raising contamination concerns. 
    Related: Despite U=U, concerns about sharing HIV status persist among older people   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES SMOKING Nicotine-Free Vapes Not Free of Health Concerns    Nicotine-free products are swiftly gaining popularity worldwideand are largely unregulated outside Europe, raising safety concerns among researchers. 
  Background: Products like Spree Bar, Happy Hippo, and Outlaw Dip are made with nicotine analogssynthetic chemicals like 6-methyl nicotineto provide what manufacturers describe as an alternative, less-addictive buzz.  
  Risk remains: But some of the analogs may be more potent and addictive than nicotine, say researchers. And some safe ingredients may be included in unsafe concentrationsor may pose risks when inhaled versus digested.  
  • Plus: Bright packaging and candy-like flavors may attract and hook underage users. 
No oversight: These products were intentionally designed to bypass regulation, said Sven Eric Jordt, a researcher at Duke University. 
    OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Special edition: Your essential UNGA primer     Ebola outbreak in the DRC: why is it so deadly?     Teen pregnancies up for the first time in 14 years     Bill Gates pledges $US912 million to AIDS and malaria non-profit as US cuts funding      For-Profit Corporations Are Buying Up More Psychiatric Hospitals. Some Flout Federal Law With Scarce Repercussions.     TB stigma in India: A narrative review of types of stigma, gender differences, and potential interventions     Ticks are migrating, raising disease risks if they can't be tracked quickly enough     Scientists discover microplastics deep inside human bones     If A.I. Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For?   Issue No. 2792
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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Categories: Global Health Feed

Mon, 09/22/2025 - 09:45
96 Global Health NOW: A Volatile Vaccine Panel; Danes Cancer Care; and Housing, Health, and Climate Change Confusion and concern followed last week's key CDC vax panel meeting. September 22, 2025 Martin Kulldorff (C) is seen during a meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. September 19, Chamblee, Georgia. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty A Volatile Vaccine Panel
   Confusion and concern followed a key U.S. vaccine advisory panels meeting last week, as it narrowed recommendations for some vaccines, tabled other controversial votes, and engaged in chaotic debate,      The result: The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC and is now composed of members hand-picked by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., backed away from its most controversial proposals.    But: Medical experts warned that the meetings reflected a politicization of medicine that will lead to the erosion of the committees integrity, .     Takeaways:     COVID-19 vaccine: ACIP voted against a proposal requiring prescriptions for COVID-19 vaccines but voted to limit recommendations for the shot to adults aged 65+ and those with health conditions. People under 65 should consult their doctor before getting vaccinated, the committee said.     MMRV vaccine: The panel recommended limiting the use of the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine in children under 4, saying instead that MMR vaccine and varicella vaccine be administered separately for that age group. 
  • But: ACIP voted that children in federal programs like Vaccines for Children can still access the combined shot.  
Hepatitis B: ACIP voted to indefinitely postpone ending universal newborn hepatitis B vaccination in favor of a more targeted approach, after backlash from pediatric experts who said the move would endanger vulnerable children, .  
  Related:     Why universal COVID-19 vaccine guidance offers stronger protection than high-risk-only policies   Winner of mRNA Nobel Prize says ACIP members claim that Covid vaccines persist is absolutely impossible      Several Northeastern States and Americas Largest City Announce the Northeast Public Health Collaborative   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Ebola has claimed 31 lives in the DRCs Kasai Province outbreaka sharp increase over the 16 reported September 14with 48 confirmed and probable cases so far, the WHO said late last week.

A flesh-eating disease in Nigeria has killed seven people and infected 67 others in the remote community of Malabu; federal health officials say bacterial disease Buruli ulcer is the primary suspect but confirmation is still pending.     China extended the prison sentence of Covid whistleblower Zhang Zhan for another four years in prison for picking quarrels and provoking trouble, according to Reporters sans Fronti癡res.  
  Stanford University scientists have created the first-ever AI-designed virus; the virus, discussed in  last week, has a unique mission: targeting and killing Escherichia coli (E. coli).   U.S. and Global Health Policy News
______________________________________________ Trump admin reportedly set to link autism to Tylenol use in pregnancy       The Trump Administrations Response to Congos Ebola Outbreak Isnt Normal, Infectious Disease Leaders Say  
  America First Global Health Strategy Commits to Funding Medicines and Health Workers In Time-Limited, Bilateral Deals  
  Despite fear of retaliation, hundreds of federal workers urge Congress to protect medicine and science     This Geriatrics Training Program Escaped the Ax. For Now.    DATA POINT

39%
漍漍
Americans who have confidence that RFK Jr. is providing trustworthy public health information, per a new poll.
  CANCER Lessons From the Danish Care Model    UK health policymakers creating a new NHS, long-range cancer care plan are looking to Denmark for guidance.    Major strides: From 1995 to 1999, Denmark's five-year survival rate for rectal cancer was ~48%; by 2014, that rate had risen to 69%.  
  How? Denmarks health system has implemented benchmarks for quick diagnoses followed up by immediate treatment, home chemotherapy administration, and upgraded hospital screening equipment. 
  • "They are diagnosing cancer earlier, people are surviving longer, more people are taking up screening all of those factors as well as investment in workforce and kit are critical components of a cancer plan, says Cancer Research UKs Michelle Mitchell. 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES HOUSING At the Nexus of Climate Change and Health 
Housing is supposed to play a frontline role when it comes to protecting human health.     But as climate change accelerates, housings role has become more complex, per a new Lancet Public Health paper.    Multidirectional impact: Housing is a contributor, an outcome, and a mediator of climate-health interactions, the paper finds: 
  • Contributor: The construction and operation of homes increase greenhouse gas emissions.  
  • Outcome: As extreme weather events increase, housing is increasingly affectedbecoming unsafe and unaffordable.  
  • Mediator: Suitable, adaptive housing can protect humans from harmful exposure. 
Push for better policy: The authors urge system-wide housing reforms, from construction to energy policy, to improve resilience, equity, and sustainability. 
  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS UN gravely alarmed by deteriorating situation in Sudans el-Fasher     An HIV Outbreak in Maine Shows the Risk of Trumps Crackdown on Homelessness and Drug Use Thanks for the tip, Chiara Jaffe!     Amendments to the International Health Regulations enter into force worldwide        Extreme weather events can have lasting health effects, researchers find  
  Mouth Microbes Linked to Pancreas Cancer Risk     The importance of language in medical training materials     How did assaults on science become the norm and what can we do?   Issue No. 2791
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Thu, 09/18/2025 - 09:42
96 Global Health NOW 091825: Sounding Alarm Over the CDC; Malawis Inner Turmoil Over Tobacco; and a Nigerian Chefs Jollof Rice Joy September 18, 2025 Former CDC Director Susan Monarez testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. September 17, Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Sounding Alarm Over the CDC     Former top CDC officials are warning that the American public health system is headed to a very dangerous place as decisions become increasingly politically driven, .

Political interference alleged: Yesterday, former CDC director Susan Monarez and chief medical officer Debra Houry testified before a Senate committee that under health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a culture of fear had taken hold at the agencyalready hollowed out by mass firings and traumatized by a shooting at agency headquarters last month, . 
  • As CDC scientists are sidelined, they are being replaced with appointees internally dubbed politicals, who have little to no scientific background, said Houry.  
Vaccine panel under scrutiny: The hearing took place on the eve of the CDCs vaccine advisory panel meetings this week, during which major changes to the vaccination schedule for children will be consideredincluding delaying the hepatitis B shot. 
  • Monarez said she feared infectious diseases like polio could be poised for a comeback: I believe we will have our children harmed by things they dont need to be harmed by. 
Insurance industry pushback: Major insurers preemptively said yesterday that they would continue to take an evidence-based approach and continue to cover vaccines,  
  States offer alternative guidance: Groups of states, including some on the West Coast and in the Northeast, are now forming health alliances to maintain evidence-based recommendations that the CDC is now rebuffing.    Related:     Turning Against Vaccines, America Is a Global Outlier      Who to Trust if You Cant Trust the CDC   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Several hundred mercenaries from Colombiamany of them young men barely out of their teensare fighting alongside Rapid Support Forces on the frontlines in Sudans war; one of the men says he and many others were tricked by false promises of private security jobs in the UAE, then sent to Sudan.   

Views of U.S. mental health policy are consistent across political party lines when it comes to a need to expand voluntary, community-based mental health services, a cross-sectional study found; however, the public is less supportive of involuntary mental health care policies, though Republicans expressed more support than others.   Eye care in Uganda is among the most underfunded health services in the country, meaning people there face a higher risk of blindness due to a paucity of eye care services,   Switching clocks twice a year in the U.S. is harmful to health in numerous ways, disrupting circadian rhythms in ways that contribute to stroke and obesity, finds a which found that remaining in either standard time or in daylight saving time reduced such risks.   SMOKING Malawis Inner Turmoil Over Tobacco   Tobacco is considered green gold in Malawi, contributing to 15% of Malawis GDP, 60% of exports, and 23% of tax revenue. 

That makes it difficult to enact critically needed policy reforms that could reduce smoking and save lives, health advocates say.     Wreaking havoc on health: Smoking is widespread among youth, with tobacco use contributing to rising cases of tuberculosis, along with cancer, and other diseases. 
  • It has been linked to ~ 5,400 deaths, 7.4% of the countrys total mortality. 
Undermined by the government: Instead of receiving support from Malawis public officials, efforts to curb smoking are being actively eroded by a government bent instead on promoting increased tobacco production.  
    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH A Stranded Stockpile of Contraceptives     In a warehouse in Belgium, $9.7 million worth of contraceptives are sitting in limbo.     Background: Before the Trump administrations freeze on foreign aid, the medications and devices were once destined for five low-income countries in Africa. Now, theyre scheduled for incineration.     Call for release: But this week, Belgian officials have reported they are still intact, for the contraceptives, which have already been paid for, to be passed along to their intended recipients before they expire between 2027 and 2031.    Impact by the numbers: , the destruction of the stockpile could lead to:  
  • 362,000 unintended pregnancies 
  • 161,000 unplanned births 
  • 110,000 unsafe abortions 
  • 718 preventable maternal deaths 
    Related: Womens rights activists rally in Belgium fearing US plans for birth control supplies   ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION She Made the Most of It: Nigerian Chefs Jollof Rice Joy    At first glance, its hard to tell: Is the pot gigantic, or are the people tiny? Turns out, its the former.      Armed with oar-sized utensils and dwarfed by a colossal, custom-built pot, Nigerian chef Hilda Baci and her gaggle of assistants have secured the Guinness World Record for the largest serving of jollof rice, an iconic West-African dish, . Ghana, Nigerias jollof rice rival, .     Rice to the top: It took nine hours of fire, passion, and teamwork, and a near-collapse as the dish was crane-lifted to the weigh-inbut the record was set: 19,356 pounds, 9 ounces. 

Not her first record rodeo: A 93-hour cook-off in 2023 gave Baci her first brush with Guinness greatness, only to be dethroned just a year later. 
  Nevertheless, Bacis ambitions inspired others who dream of doing the most of anything, really, including , or giving . The only thing harder than achieving that accolade, surely, is listening to it.  QUICK HITS Afghanistan faces perfect storm of crises, UN warns     Can Drug Users Be Forced Into Rehab? Trump Says Yes. So Do 34 States.     Putin Marks Another Break From International Norms As Russia Exits Anti-Torture Pact     How UK aid cuts will lead to global health programme closuresand deaths      Bipartisan bill seeks to reinstate national suicide hotline for LGBTQ+ youth
  Special Olympics Launches Global Health Report to Tackle Inequities faced by People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Gas stove makers quietly delete air pollution warnings as they fight mandatory health labels     As California installs more artificial turf, health and environmental concerns multiply     How one op-ed sparked high-level talks at Nedlac, treasury and the presidency on cheaper food   Issue No. 2790
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Wed, 09/17/2025 - 09:22
96 Global Health NOW: UN Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza; Researchers Growing Resistance; and Gaming Addiction Treatment in Australia Israels military campaign is being conducted with intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, finds independent commission September 17, 2025 Eight-year-old Youssef Ali Hussein's family carries his body after he died from Guillain-Barre syndrome at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on September 16. Abdallah F.s. Alattar/Anadolu via Getty UN Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza    The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has formally accused Israel of committing genocide in Gazathe first such official UN assessment, .     The issue of intent': The Commission concluded that Israels military campaign is being conducted with intent to destroy Palestinians in Gazaa critical legal threshold for genocide, which the committee said intent was inferred from military operations, blocked food aid and starvation, and public statements by Israeli leaders.      states that Israel committed four of five acts laid out in the 1948 Genocide Convention: killing, inflicting serious harm, creating life-threatening conditions, and preventing births, . The fifth act, the forcible removal of children, was not alleged.    International reaction: All 153 countries that signed the Genocide Convention are legally obligated to act to prevent genocide, said the Commissionwhich urged countries to halt arms transfers to Israel. 
  • Israel has rejected the report, calling it based on Hamas falsehoods and saying the October 7 massacre two years ago was an act of genocide. The U.S. is expected to oppose the findings.  
  • Meanwhile, five British MPs have urged their government to back a UN-led military intervention, .  
Whats next: Ultimately, the International Court of Justice will have to decide if a case of genocide has been proven or not. A case against Israel has been brought by South Africa.  
  • Meanwhile, Israel has launched a new ground invasion in Gaza Cityas international pressure grows for a ceasefire, . 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
Opioid-related deaths in England and Wales in the past decade were 55% higher than previously recorded, amounting to 13,000+ heroin and opioid deaths missed in official statistics from 2011 to 2022, according to a .      The CDC has revoked telework permissions for employees with disabilities and paused all new approvals for such accommodations pending HHS updates to a broader telework policy; the move follows the Trump administrations January directive to terminate remote work arrangements for federal employees.      A whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former kidney transplant program director alleges sweeping corruption, bias, and greed across the U.S. organ donation and transplant system, taking aim at stakeholders including nonprofits, government contractors, and transplant centers.     An algorithm that projects outbreaks impacts even with incomplete data could guide decisions on when to implement or relax policies like masking, social distancing, or quarantine, Sept. 3; the algorithm uses data as its available versus preset schedules and thresholds to determine optimal timing for nonpharmaceutical interventions.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News   Kennedy's vaccine panel expected to recommend delaying hepatitis B shot in children      House panels charge U.S. National Academies with producing partisan studies     Mississippi declares infant deaths emergency as CDC program that could have helped is halted     Experts warn loss of USAID endangers the fight against deadly TB     Scientists decry NIH pledge to end some human fetal tissue research   POLICY Researchers Growing Resistance    Scientists in the U.S. are increasingly pushing back against drastic cuts to government research, using a range of tactics:    Legal action: Growing numbers of researchers are joining class action lawsuits to reinstate grants and preserve funding for institutions like the NIH.     Tracking grants: Activists are cataloging cuts through public databases like , tracking hundreds of terminated grants, revealing disproportionate cuts to research supporting certain minority groups.     Whistle-blowing: Government scientists are informing lawmakers and journalists about internal policy violations. 
  Public outreach: Outward-facing projects like and aim to rebuild public trust by connecting scientists and their work with their local communities.      GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MENTAL HEALTH Pioneering Gaming Addiction Treatment in Australia    Since 2022, ~300 people have sought treatment for gaming addiction at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, Australiathe nations first public hospital to treat the increasingly prevalent disorder.  
  • ~500,000 Australians may be affected by addiction to videogaming, say researchers, who describe isolation, depression, and aggression as common symptoms as compulsive gaming disrupts school, work, and family life. 
  • Most patients at the Fiona Stanley facility are 1519 years old. At the clinic, they are slowly reconnected to daily activities and routines.  
More tools needed: The clinics practitioners and other researchers say schools and physicians need more resources to flag and screen at-risk youth so treatment can begin earlier. 
    QUICK HITS Amid rising violence in Colombia, girls and women are being held as sex slaves: No woman is safe   

Studies show mostly poor long-COVID protection for Paxlovid 
  Fentanyl: Germany prepares for synthetic drugs crisis      Injury prevention is in danger from federal cuts   (commentary)     How billions of hacked mosquitoes and a vaccine could beat the deadly dengue virus   Issue No. 2789
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Tue, 09/16/2025 - 09:19
96 Global Health NOW: A Troubling Snapshot of Womens Health; Europe's Fungal Threat; and Indigenous Ingredients Elevate School Lunch Global conflict, aid cuts, and movements against gender equality threaten womens wellbeing September 16, 2025 An elderly woman and malnourished children look on after spending two days without a meal in Moroto, Uganda. July 22. Hajarah Nalwadda/Getty Images A Troubling Snapshot of Womens Health 
Womens health gains in past decades have been overshadowed by persistent challenges and inequities compared with men, per  published yesterday. 
  Warnings:  
  • 10% of women still live in extreme poverty, and 351 million women and girls will face extreme poverty by 2030. 
  • 64 million more women than men are food insecure. 
  • Anemia rates in women ages 1549 are expected to rise to 33% in 2030 from 31.1% today. 
  • 676 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometers of a deadly conflict event in 2024a number not seen since the 1990s. 
Advances: 
  • Maternal mortality fell by 39.3% from 2000 to 2023. 
  • More girls than boys are enrolling in and completing school worldwide.    
Key threats: global conflict, aid cuts, and movements against gender equality, . 
Funds infusion needed: The world spends  each year, but $420 billion annually could advance gender equality, said UN Womens Sarah Hendriks.  
The Quote: It can seem very hopeless, but in actual fact, we can choose a world where millions more women do not remain trapped in poverty or sidelined from power or exposed to violence, Hendriks said.  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
100,000+ people in northern South Sudan have been displaced by floods and another 300,000 people are at risk in the coming weeks, per a UNHCR official; the inundation threatens to cut off communities and worsen food insecurity.  
Pakistan launched its first-ever human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign yesterday, targeting girls ages 914 in Sindh, Punjab, Azad Kashmir, and Islamabad; the two-week effort seeks to protect millions from cervical cancer caused by HPV.     Rwanda is seeing an alarming uptick in malaria casesrising 45% in 2024after nearly a decade of steady declines, according to officials; the country is now reconsidering whether to accept malaria vaccines it once declined.  
An analysis of 26 countries across the Americas highlights the persistent challenge of drowning in the region even as some countries make progress with disaster warning systems and water safety campaigns; found that just two of the countries studied have a government-led national drowning prevention strategy.   DRUG RESISTANCE European Hospitals Formidable Fungal Threat    A drug-resistant fungal infection has gained a foothold in European hospitals, proliferating from isolated cases to becoming widespread in some countries, the European Centre for Disease Control .     Rapid rise: The fungus Candidozyma auris has only been detected within the last decade; but since 2013, 4,000+ people have been infected across 18 countries.  
  • 1,346 cases were reported in 2023 alonea 67% jump from the previous year. 
Deadly foe: C. auris thrives in health facilities, surviving on surfaces from windowsills to stethoscopes, and resists most disinfectants and antifungals.  
  • ~60% of infected patients die within 90 days.  
  Related: Epidemiological and microbiological characterization of Candidozyma auris (Candida auris) isolates from a tertiary hospital in Cairo, Egypt: an 18-month study GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NUTRITION Elevating School Lunch in India With Indigenous Ingredients     Schools in Indias rural Meghalaya state have a new recipe for boosting school attendance and combating malnutritionand it includes Himalayan chives, cured dry fish, and berry pickle.     Local, farm-grown, and foraged ingredients are now a central part of school lunches in the region, thanks to an initiative introduced by the to make school lunches more nutrient-rich, diversified, sustainable, and climate-resilient. 
  • The effort also seeks to support local farmers and teach children about the Indigenous foods within their vicinity. 
Early impact: A one-year assessment of the initiative found that 92% of students fall within a healthy weight range.  
  • Improved attendance and energy levels have also been reported, leading local officials to scale up the project.  
OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Critical to Complete Pandemic Agreement by UN Meeting in 2026  
Online misinformation putting women off contraceptive pill, study finds     Study reveals hidden causes of heart attacks in younger adults, especially women     Why 1 in 6 U.S. parents are rejecting vaccine recommendations   Over half of US healthcare workers plan to switch jobs by next year, survey finds     Another Mediterranean diet benefit: Better gum health, say UK scientists       Reducing Tobacco Use Worldwide A New Perspective Series      Whens the best time to get a flu shot? Doctors explain Issue No. 2788
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Mon, 09/15/2025 - 09:25
96 Global Health NOW: A Rising Dual Threat; Supporting Medics Mental Health; and Nairobi's Shrinking Green Spaces September 15, 2025 Boatmen sleep inside mosquito nets on their boats on the Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on June 24. Syed Mahamudur Rahman/NurPhoto via Getty A Rising Dual Threat 

Hospitals in Bangladesh have been overwhelmed by intense, overlapping outbreaks of both dengue and chikungunyaa trend that doctors say is becoming more frequent and severe, . 

  • 33,800+ dengue cases and 132 deaths have been reported this year. 

  • Chikungunya, in decline since 2017, is rapidly resurging.  

Wider outbreaks: The two diseases are from different viral families and require different medical treatments, but are spread by the same mosquitoes, leading to simultaneous outbreaks and strained health systems in places like Brazil and Sri Lanka.  

Compounded by climate change: ~18% of dengue cases can be attributed to rising temperatureswhich may lead to 4.6 million additional infections annually, .  

  • This is not just hypothetical future change, but a large amount of human suffering that has already happened because of warming-driven dengue transmission, said study author Erin Mordecai, .  

Inequalitys impact: The mosquito-borne diseases disproportionately affect marginalized populations in places like Brazil, with higher hospitalization, mortality rates, and years of life lost among Black and Indigenous groups, . 

Meanwhile in Europe: France reported 382 local chikungunya cases this summer, up from just one last year, .

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
The U.S. government destroyed $10 million of contraceptives destined for low-income countries; a USAID spokesperson said the stockpile included products that induce abortion, but an inventory list showed this statement was false.      Nearly 60% of Japanese in their 20s either never drink alcohol or consume it less than once per month, according to a new marketing survey; young people cited poor tolerance for alcohol, taste, and health concerns.     Mothers and babies in England are endangered by a toxic cover-up culture pervasive in the NHS, in which doctors and hospital staff fail to report problems, say health leaders involved in a national maternity investigation focusing on 14 NHS trusts.     Labor laws to protect workers in extreme heat are increasing worldwide, but they are barely keeping pace with the rapidly intensifying risks brought on by climate change.   CONFLICT Supporting Medics Mental Health 
As the war in Ukraine grinds on, many of the countrys battlefield medics caring for injured soldiers are themselves facing increasing mental strain.  
  • 30% of Ukrainian medical workers say they struggle to manage emotions without self-harm or harming others, . 
  • Many medics came from civilian professions and had minimal preparation for the physical and emotional toll of war.  
A different kind of battlefield retreat: A Ukrainian charity, Repower, aims to support medics facing burnout by taking them on recovery getaways abroad, where they can rest and learn about psychological coping tools.    Critical reminder: There is life outside of war, said Pasha, one of the ~900 Ukrainian medics who have joined the retreats. 
   
  Related: Ukraine: Life in a mined village   (video)    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CLIMATE Nairobi's Shrinking Green Spaces  
Air quality in Nairobi is steadily worsening, with pollution levels 3.5X above the WHOs safe limit for particulate matter (PM2.5)levels that have been linked to chronic illnesses and up to ~1,400 premature deaths annually.     Driving the problem: Emissions from traffic, industry, and burning; but also the ongoing loss of green buffersparks, tree-lined corridors, and urban canopiesto development.  
  • Nairobi has 6.56 square meters of green spaces per capita, below the WHO's guideline of 910 square meters.   
  • The vanishing green means the loss of essential air filtration, even as emissions increase.  
The Quote: It felt like the city I depend on for survival was slowly choking me, said fruit seller James Muro, who developed a lung infection from polluted air.      

Related: Warning of climate breakdown and soaring heat deaths a wake up call for Australia, PM says     OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Congo's Ebola outbreak spreads as cases double     They raped us one by one: East Timors forgotten women of war    
Child dies from complication of measles contracted years earlier     Hot spots shift in Africas mpox battle as cholera activity spikes in Chad and Republic of Congo     Methanol poisoning: a diffuse health disaster     Being too thin can be deadlier than being overweight, Danish study reveals        Water and sanitation fall through the cracks of development      The government wants more people to breastfeed. Experts say paid parental leave could help.   Issue No. 2787
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Thu, 09/11/2025 - 10:06
96 Global Health NOW: The Global Funds Endangered Footholds; Hantavirus Hits Russian Troops; and Looking For Love at a Snails Pace September 11, 2025 A mother and child wait as her child gets registered to receive a malaria vaccine at Apac General Hospital. Apac District, Uganda, April 8. Hajarah Nalwadda/Getty The Global Funds Endangered Footholds    In a swiftly changing global health climate, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will channel its resources to the worlds poorest countrieswhich Fund leaders warn are highly vulnerable to a resurgence of the three diseases amid sudden aid cutoffs, . 
  • "We're skewing our resources even more to the very poorest countries," said Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund, who added that leaving countries like Sudan to fend for themselves amid conflict, climate change, and disease is morally repugnant.  
Major gainsnow at risk: The Funds highlights major milestones: 70 million lives saved since 2002, and a 63% drop in the combined death rate from the three diseases, . 
  • But those gains now face the threat of erosion as contributions from donor governments falter.  
Malaria progress is most susceptible, warned Sandswho pointed to the impact of singular circumstances like the Pakistan floods, which can quickly lead to massive case increases, .  
  • 100,000+ additional malaria deaths are anticipated this year, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and among children. 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
DRC towns affected by the latest Ebola outbreak have erected checkpoints to restrict population movements and placed the Kasais Bulape zone under confinement as cases ticked up this week; aid workers warn the response is underfunded.     The risk of death from chronic illnesses including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes dropped in four out of five countries between 2010 and 2019, that drew from data in 185 countries.     Unproven treatments for Lyme disease are on the rise, including lasers, herbal remedies, and electromagnetswhich researchers warn could be ineffective or dangerous.     Incarcerated people who received medication for opioid use disorder were significantly more likely to continue treatment six months after release, finds a ; such treatment was also linked with a 52% lower risk of fatal overdose.   RADAR Hantavirus Hits Russian Troops    Hantavirus has sickened at least three soldiers from the Akhmat Battalion, a Chechen special forces unit fighting in southeastern Ukraine.  
  • The disease is spread by and cannot be transmitted person-to-person. 
  • It has a fatality rate of up to 38%; the most severe form typically begins with flu-like symptoms and can progress to fever and abdominal pain, bleeding from the eyes, and kidney failure. 
  • No antiviral treatments are available; two existing vaccines target specific strains and are only approved for use by South Korea and China. 
Health intelligence firm Airfinity ties the outbreak to poor living conditions and uncontrolled rodent populations at the front lines.      The Quote: Mice are everywhere. We wake up because they run across us. We even wrestle over cans of condensed milk, a Russian medic with the unit told Pravda.    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MALARIA Education vs. Infection    Teaching people strategies about how to prevent malaria has a powerful impact on reducing casescomparable to the impact of spraying insecticide, .     Details: A study in rural Burkina Faso and C繫te dIvoire found that combining bed-net use with malaria educationlike how to use bed nets effectively, how to encourage a mosquito-free household environment, and when to seek early treatmentreduced malaria cases by 22%.     Implications: The study offers the first epidemiological evidence that malaria education can meaningfully reduce infection rates, and could be an effective tool used alongside other core malaria-prevention strategies, :  
  • As funding landscapes shift, malaria control programmes and their implementing partners must diversify strategies to sustain progress against the disease, wrote the commentary authors, researchers at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. 
     Related:     New study reveals hidden risks of 'silent' malaria infections      The resurgence of malaria in Africa is an avoidable crisishere's what we must do

A New Malaria Drug Can Treat InfantsIf Health Systems Support It   ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Looking For Love at a Snails Pace    Snails have a 1 in 40,000 chance of being anatomically at-odds with most of their species. Ned the snail is the 1spiraling left instead of the usual right. 
  Giselle Clarkson, a home gardener in New Zealand, encountered the rare left-coiled snail among some leaves, named him after the left-handed Simpsons character, and set out to find him a mate.   
  Left out of love: Ned just needs a snail he can connect with. Literally. Left-coiling and right-coiling snails cant align their sex organs to procreate.   
  But as with many matchmaking missions, its unclear whether this matchee cares that hes single or if he even wants kids. But that hasnt stopped Clarkson. 
  I have never felt this stressed about the welfare of a common garden snail before, .  QUICK HITS When the Law Limits Choice: Nigerias Policies are Undermining Sexual Justice     Time to 'stop tolerating women's pain and suffering': Melinda Gates-backed research initiative raises $100M      After 17 Years, DNA Tied a Man to Her Rape. Under Massachusetts Law, It Was Too Late.     About 2,000 people may have been exposed to measles at Utah event     Kids with COVID had a 50% to 60% higher risk of depression, anxiety in 2021, researchers say     Marburg Virus Disease in Rwanda, 2024 Public Health and Clinical Responses     West Nile virus cases running higher than normal, prompting health warnings      Insomnia Raises Dementia Risk in Healthy Older Adults     EU to slash food and fast fashion waste     Dr. Peter Hotez takes the war against science very personally   Issue No. 2786
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Wed, 09/10/2025 - 09:30
96 Global Health NOW: MAHA Roadmap for Childrens Health; Influencers in South Africas Cigarette Debate; and Choleras Climb in Africa RFK, Jr. calls U.S. childrens health as an existential crisis. September 10, 2025 Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C., on September 4. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images The MAHA Roadmap for Childrens Health Released    The Trump administration yesterday to Make Our Children Healthy Again, aimed at addressing a rise in chronic diseases in childrena trend Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. describes as an existential crisis for our country, .     The commission listed four drivers of chronic disease and outlined broad responses to eachprompting mixed reactions from public health researchers.  
  • Diet: The report warns about the impact of processed foods, calling for new dietary guidelines promoting whole foods. It also calls for limiting the inclusion of processed foods in government food programs, while increasing access to items like whole milk in schools.  
  • Inactivity: The commission also points to unprecedented inactivity among children, calling for more guidance around screen time and for more physical activity in schoolsincluding the return of the Presidential Fitness Test.  
  • Chemical exposure: The report warns that children are exposed to increasing levels of synthetic chemicals linked to diseasebut avoids any major pesticide regulations, which critics described as a big win for the food industry, .  
  • Overmedicalization: The report also points to a concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children and proposes a new vaccine framework focused on medical freedom.  
Reactions: Public health researchers and advocates say the report's goals, while sweeping, lack guidance on implementation, and are being undermined by other moves from the Trump administrationincluding cuts to food assistance, Medicaid, and scientific research, as well as the risks stemming from Kennedys moves to overhaul vaccine policy.    More U.S. Health Policy News:    Trump announces crackdown on pharmaceutical advertising      Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid        Fired CDC Director Susan Monarez to testify to Senate panel     Another US doctors' group breaks with federal policy, recommends COVID-19 vaccines for all adults GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
Obesity has superseded hunger as the top malnutrition issue facing children globally, that highlights the widespread marketing of ultra processed foods as a key driver of the trend; 1 in 10 teenagers and school-age children live with obesity.     44% of people with diabetes worldwide are undiagnosed, , which looked at data from 204 countries and territories from 2000 to 2023.     THC may disrupt human egg cells, leading to the wrong number of chromosomes and potentially to infertility or miscarriage, that analyzed the impact of chemicals in cannabis on female fertility.     Long COVID is highly prevalent worldwide, finds a ; meanwhile, a second study of long COVID in adolescents finds that most symptoms reported by teens in 2022 were resolved three months post-infection.   TOBACCO Deploying Influencers in South Africas Cigarette Debate 
As new tobacco legislation makes its way through South Africas Parliament, industry opponents are tapping social media influencers to carry their key talking pointsand cast a misleading picture about the bill.    Background: The legislation, the , aims to prohibit the sale of loose cigarettes, among other restrictions.  
  • ~20 influencers have been posting that the bill will , a key industry message, and that the prohibition is part of a secretive government conspiracy.  
  • Health advocates and scientists say the misinformation is a deliberate tactic to sway public opinion against the governments efforts to curb tobacco usage.  
  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES INFECTIOUS DISEASES Choleras Climb in Africa     Cases of cholera in Africa have doubled over the past three years, with more than 230,000 cases across 23 countries and 5,000 deaths attributed to the disease.     Cholera, which people can get from contaminated water or food, is easily treatable. However, in half a dozen countries 1% of patients are dying from the disease, exposing large gaps in care.  
  • Death can occur within several hours. 
  • Severe dehydration from nausea and vomiting shuts down internal organs. 
  • Annually, there are between 1.3 and 4 million cases worldwide. 
Taking action: Over the next six months, an emergency plan from Africa CDC and the World Health Organization will roll out, which includes hundreds of treatment centers and outpatient care locations and 10 million oral cholera vaccine doses.       OPPORTUNITY: WEBINAR TOMORROW! QUICK HITS Missing limbs and loved ones, Gazan children begin treatment journey abroad     NHS to trial revolutionary blood test that could speed up Alzheimers diagnosis     CDC finds 4% drop in US death rate in 2024. Experts say decline may be due to COVID     'We have basically destroyed what capacity we had to respond to a pandemic,' says leading epidemiologist Michael Osterholm     Childhood play replaced by screens: Kenyan study warns of rising double burden of malnutrition     Issue No. 2785
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Tue, 09/09/2025 - 08:49
96 Global Health NOW: Women Denied Aid in Afghanistan; Contraceptive Gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa; and Mass-Producing Mosquitoes in Brazil September 9, 2025 An Afghan women and her children sit in a makeshift camp in the aftermath of an earthquake, in the Nurgal district, Kunar Province, on September 4. Stringer/AFP via Getty Women Denied Aid in Afghanistan  
In the devastation following Afghanistans 6.0-magnitude earthquake Sunday, humanitarian workers are struggling to reach more survivors, with a narrow, one-way mountain road partially blocked by large rocks from landslides the only way to get to affected areas. 
  • ~40,000 people have been impacted by the earthquake, and 5,000+ homes have been destroyed in eastern Afghanistan.  
Emergency responders are trying to prioritize aid to women, children, and locals with disabilities, but female survivors have been deprived of care as Taliban-enforced gender rules prevent male first responders and doctors from assisting themeven in emergencies, .     Pushed aside, passed over: After the quake, which killed 2,200+ and injured 3,600+, women reported being pushed aside or passed over in emergency rooms. Male medical teams reported being hesitant even to pull women from rubble. 
  • Being a woman here means we are always the last to be seen, said a 19-year-old mother. 
The WHO has called for authorities to ease restrictions on female aid workers, saying their presence is essential, especially as women are not permitted to travel for care without male guardians, .    A deepening care crisis: With women currently barred from medical education and training, the shortage of female medical providers will only worsen, .  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   The DRC health ministry has reported 32 Ebola cases and 15 deathsincluding the index patient, a 34-year-old pregnant woman, and two of the health workers who cared for her; the cases are from Kasai province, which borders Angola.  
Contaminated metal at an industrial site in Indonesia may be the source of radioactive material that led to massive recalls of imported frozen shrimp, per the International Atomic Energy Agency; efforts are underway to halt more U.S.-bound shipments.  
Canadian researchers say that sepsis should be recognized as a public health emergency, highlighting significant gaps in policies and training standards throughout Canada and calling for a coordinated national action plan to address sepsis.     Extreme heat drove increased sugar consumption in U.S. households in 20042019, especially in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages, with greatest impacts among disadvantaged groups; projected future increases in temperature and sugar consumption point to the need to explore dietary adaptation to climate change.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News As Covid surges in the US, Americans cant get vaccinated: terrified I might kill somebody  
Minnesota, New York issue executive orders promoting access to COVID vaccines  
How to get a coronavirus vaccine and whos eligible amid limited access     Trump downplays domestic violence in speech about religious freedom      Trump shares video highlighting discredited theory linking vaccines to autism     As US retreats from global health, corporations must fill the void FAMILY PLANNING Contraceptive Gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa    Long-acting birth control methods like IUDs and implants remain underutilized in many sub-Saharan African countries, with nearly 4 in 5 women depending on short-term methods, .     Findings: On average, 21.7% of sexually active women ages 1549 use long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), with wide disparities among countries. 
  • Benin, Mali, and Tanzania lead in use, due to high availability, strong family planning services, and community outreach.  
  • Namibia, Niger, and Togo have the lowest rates due to disjointed health infrastructure, misinformation, and cultural barriers. 
Improving access: Researchers recommend a multi-pronged approach to expanding access to LARCs, including training providers, strengthening supply chains, and boosting educational campaigns.       DATA POINT

~48 million
漍漍漍漍
U.S. adults who say they have been or are being treated for depression; the rates for those under age 30 now exceed 1 in 4, per a new pair of surveys.
  DENGUE Mass-Producing Mosquitoes in Brazil 
The sprawling Wolbito do Brasil facility in Curitiba is abuzz with innovationand the drone of millions of mosquitoes. 
  It is the worlds largest mosquito factoryproducing 100 million eggs of a modified Aedes aegypti mosquito each week in scaled-up efforts to combat dengue and Zika. 
  • The modified mosquitoes, dubbed wolbitos, are infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium that blocks virus transmission and is passed to offspring.  
Operational hurdles: The facility has had to overcome a range of logistical challenges: fine-tuning climate control, switching blood sourcing, ensuring some insecticide resistance, and cultivating community buy-in in the face of misinformation. 
  Taking flight: The factory released its first wolbitos last month in Santa Catarina and plans to release more soon in Brasilia. 
   
  Related: Inside a mosquito factory   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Nepal lifts social media ban after 19 killed in protests     This is what could happen to a child who doesn't get vaccinated      States Heading Toward Constitutional Showdown Over Abortion Shield Laws     Another Man Gets a Pig Kidney as Transplant Trials Are Poised to Start     Dividends from death     Sweeteners in diet drinks may steal years from the brain     Theres a Secret to a Nearly Painless IUD     New York City Hospital Staff Learn Planet-Friendly Health Care     Can researchers stop AI making up citations   Issue No. 2784
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Categories: Global Health Feed

Mon, 09/08/2025 - 16:29
96 Global Health NOW: August 2025 Recap September 8, 2025 A medical worker disinfects a local Ebola treatment center during a 2021 outbreak in North Kivu province, northeastern DRC. March 21, 2021. Alain Uaykani/Xinhua via Getty Ebola Outbreak Tests Shaky Global Health Ground    A new Ebola outbreak in the DRC is sparking global health security concerns in a destabilized public health landscape, as practitioners fear depleted resources and disrupted leadership will hamper response efforts.  
  Rapid transmission: So far 15 deaths and 28 cases have been reported in the DRC outbreak, which started after a pregnant woman showing symptoms of hemorrhagic fever was admitted to the hospital in late August. The health workers who treated her also became ill, .  
  • The nations health system has already been weakened by intensified conflict and by U.S. aid cuts, . 
Urgent response: The WHO has deployed experts and emergency supplies; meanwhile, vaccines are being sent from Kinshasa to contain the spread.  
  Bigger picture: As the outbreak spreads, the U.S. faces major setbacks in pandemic preparedness, , as the White House has dismantled key biosecurity offices, slashed CDCs staff and shaken up its leadership, withdrawn from the WHO, and weakened global health ties and surveillance. 
  • With no warning, we will have less ability to stop the disease at its source, and less power, if it reaches our shores, to save American lives, the commentarys authors write. 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Mpox is no longer an international health emergency, per the WHO, given sustained declines in cases in the DRC, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Uganda; however, the Africa CDC confirmed it still constitutes a continental public health emergency, pointing to rising cases in Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, Zambia, and Tanzania.  
A new anti-gay law introduces prison sentences of up to five years and a fine for those who promote homosexuality in Burkina Faso, formerly a relatively safe space in West Africa for the gay community.      A new bat-borne pathogen, dubbed the Salt Gully virus, has been identified in Australias flying foxes, though there have been no reports of human spillover; the virus is related to Nipah and Hendra viruses.     A federal report on alcohol consumption and links to cancer has been pulled back by the HHS and will not be submitted to Congress; U.S. Dietary Guidelines will instead be shaped by an industry-favored competing report that found that moderate alcohol consumption was healthy.   AUGUST MUST-READS Wartime Russia Is Losing the Battle Against HIV 
  War has significantly disrupted HIV prevention and care in Russia.    
By the numbers: In the first year of the war alone, the recorded incidence of HIV among military personnel soared by 40X+and the proportion of Russian HIV patients receiving antiretroviral therapy has dipped below 50% for the first time in many years.     Wartime barriers:  
  • Amplified anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the country, the removal of NGOs assisting in HIV care, and blood transfusions and the reuse of syringes in wartime field hospitals. 
   
  The Troubled Fight Against Polio    The WHO and its partners came close to scoring a huge win against polio in 2021recording just five cases of the natural virus that year. But last year, the poliovirus eluded vaccination efforts and caused 99 cases.     In a deeply reported investigation, the AP blames misinformation, mismanagement, a flawed strategy, and the oral vaccinehighlighting particular challenges to vaccination in Afghanistan and Pakistan (the only countries with uninterrupted polio transmission).      But still: 3 billion children have been vaccinated and ~20 million people have avoided paralysis since the Global Polio Eradication Initiatives founding in 1988. 
  • Theres so many children being protected today because of the work that was done over the past 40 years. ... Lets not overdramatize the challenges, because that leads to children getting paralyzed, says Jamal Ahmed, WHOs polio director. 
 
 
  Dispatches from Molar City    Los Algodones, Mexico, nicknamed Molar City, is home to ~5,500 residentsand 1,000+ dentists.   
  • The town has become known for its sprawling network of dental clinics that draw 1 million+ Americans seeking affordable dental care. 
  • A root canal in Molar City can cost less than one-fifth of what it would across the border 10 minutes away, making the town part Lourdes and part Costco for medical tourists, writes journalist Burkhard Bilgerwho details his own quest pursuing dental care in Los Algodones. 
  AUGUST EXCLUSIVE A resting female Aedes aegypti mosquito. CDC/ Amy E. Lockwood, MS World Mosquito Day 2025: A New World, Crises, and Opportunities    
Malaria still packs a major punch (~263 million malaria cases and 597,000 malaria deaths in 2023, per the WHO), but the toll of Aedes aegypti mosquitoesthe vector for dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zikais rapidly expanding, eclipsing Anopheles as our greatest mosquito challenge,  to mark World Mosquito Day (August 20). 
  • For dengue, the toll jumped from 6.5 million+ cases and 7,300 global deaths in 2023 to 14 million cases and 10,000 deaths in 2024. 
  • Yet, unlike malaria, Aedes-borne viruses attract little funding.
Whats needed: An all-society, bottom-up approach to guide malaria and dengue control efforts, led by a new generation of public health field entomologists grounded in new technologies as well as ecology, biology, and community engagement.  GOOD READS FOR AUGUST Tips from GHN Readers      Ahead of GHNs August break, we asked GHN readers for summer reading recommendations. Thanks to all who shared suggestions! 
  • The Education of an Idealist and A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, both by Samantha Power Lorina McAdam, Auradou, France 

  • Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life by John Kaag Lorenn Walker, Waialu, Hawaii, USA 

  • Dismissed: Tackling the Biases that Undermine Our Health Care by Angela Marshall 
  • Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New Yorks Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright Hannah Schoon, Utah, USA

  • Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio Michael Kowolik, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 

  • Escape on the Pearl: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad by Mary Kay Ricks Stephan Gilbert, Bowie, Maryland, USA 
And, to close us out, here are a few audio books suggested by Peter Kilmarx, of Bethesda, Maryland, USA:  
  • On Call by Tony Fauci (He narrates the book with his Brooklyn accent, which is wonderful. Go figure.) 
  • Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 
  • Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari 
  • Caste by Isabel Wilkerson 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MALARIA Burkina Fasos About-Face on Gene Drives 
Last month, the international nonprofit Target Malaria released 16,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in Burkina Fasoa major step forward in the effort to fight malaria through genetic intervention, and the first release of its kind in Africa.     Sudden shift: A week later, police raided a key partner research institute, suspended all Target Malaria activity, and ordered insecticide spraying to destroy released mosquitoes.     Why? Opposition to the gene drive effort has been fueled by misinformation, rising anti-Western sentiment, and conspiracy theories claiming that the projectwhich aims to suppress the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoesseeks to sterilize people.     Future unclear: Scientists say the move is a major setback for gene-driven research in Africa and could have a chilling effect on future gene drives, despite years of investment.       OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Ishaan Tharoor: In Sudan and Afghanistan, disaster upon disaster   Harvard victory leaves scientists feeling vindicated but uncertain     Millions of Britons face higher risk of heart failure due to dirty air, study suggests     The silent killer increases your risk of stroke and dementia. Here's how to control it      RFK Jr slings accusations and defends public-health upheaval at fiery hearing     U.S. will fulfill Biden-era pledge to provide HIV prevention breakthrough to millions  
   Powerful new painkiller ADRIANA shows promise in ending opioid dependence   Issue No. M-August 2025
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Mon, 09/08/2025 - 09:45
96 Global Health NOW: Ebola Outbreak Tests Shaky Global Health Ground; Burkina Fasos Gene-Drive Reversal; and Cuts Undermine Quest for Autisms Cause September 8, 2025 A medical worker disinfects a local Ebola treatment center during a 2021 outbreak in North Kivu province, northeastern DRC. March 21, 2021. Alain Uaykani/Xinhua via Getty Ebola Outbreak Tests Shaky Global Health Ground    A new Ebola outbreak in the DRC is sparking global health security concerns in a destabilized public health landscape, as practitioners fear depleted resources and disrupted leadership will hamper response efforts.  
  Rapid transmission: So far 15 deaths and 28 cases have been reported in the DRC outbreak, which started after a pregnant woman showing symptoms of hemorrhagic fever was admitted to the hospital in late August. The health workers who treated her also became ill, .  
  • The nations health system has already been weakened by intensified conflict and by U.S. aid cuts, . 
Urgent response: The WHO has deployed experts and emergency supplies; meanwhile, vaccines are being sent from Kinshasa to contain the spread.  
  Bigger picture: As the outbreak spreads, the U.S. faces major setbacks in pandemic preparedness, , as the White House has dismantled key biosecurity offices, slashed CDCs staff and shaken up its leadership, withdrawn from the WHO, and weakened global health ties and surveillance. 
  • With no warning, we will have less ability to stop the disease at its source, and less power, if it reaches our shores, to save American lives, the commentarys authors write. 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES EDITOR'S NOTE Global Health NOW More Than Ever     Hey Readers,      Could I ask a favor? Share GHN with a friend, family member, or colleague.     We all know smart, engaged people who could benefit from GHN. Please take a moment to invite them into GHNs community.      Just send them GHNs  and a few kind words. Youll help them and help GHN!     Many thanks,   Brian    PS: If you invite someone to subscribe, please let me know so I can thank you in an upcoming issue.  The Latest One-Liners   Mpox is no longer an international health emergency, per the WHO, given sustained declines in cases in the DRC, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Uganda; however, the Africa CDC confirmed it still constitutes a continental public health emergency, pointing to rising cases in Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, Zambia, and Tanzania.  
A new anti-gay law introduces prison sentences of up to five years and a fine for those who promote homosexuality in Burkina Faso, formerly a relatively safe space in West Africa for the gay community.      A new bat-borne pathogen, dubbed the Salt Gully virus, has been identified in Australias flying foxes, though there have been no reports of human spillover; the virus is related to Nipah and Hendra viruses.     A federal report on alcohol consumption and links to cancer has been pulled back by the HHS and will not be submitted to Congress; U.S. Dietary Guidelines will instead be shaped by an industry-favored competing report that found that moderate alcohol consumption was healthy.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News RFK Jr slings accusations and defends public-health upheaval at fiery hearing     RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans.     U.S. will fulfill Biden-era pledge to provide HIV prevention breakthrough to millions     Amesh Adalja: Risk-Based COVID Vaccination Gets It Right. Here's What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong. Government leaders have created confusion and controversy     World Health Organization says US CDC needs to be protected   MALARIA Burkina Fasos About-Face on Gene Drives 
Last month, the international nonprofit Target Malaria released 16,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in Burkina Fasoa major step forward in the effort to fight malaria through genetic intervention, and the first release of its kind in Africa.     Sudden shift: A week later, police raided a key partner research institute, suspended all Target Malaria activity, and ordered insecticide spraying to destroy released mosquitoes.     Why? Opposition to the gene drive effort has been fueled by misinformation, rising anti-Western sentiment, and conspiracy theories claiming that the projectwhich aims to suppress the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoesseeks to sterilize people.     Future unclear: Scientists say the move is a major setback for gene-driven research in Africa and could have a chilling effect on future gene drives, despite years of investment.       GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES AUTISM The Cuts Undermining Kennedys Quest for a Cause    The Department of Health and Human Services plans to release a report this month that will reportedly link autism to use of acetaminophen and certain vitamin deficiencies during pregnancy, despite a lack of robust research to prove such claims.    Establishing the cause of autism has been a key part of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s platform. But U.S. researchers who have long studied environmental links to autism say the federal governments cuts to research work against that very goal, .  
  • $40+ million in federal autism research grants, including those looking at autisms ties to chemicals and pollution, have been canceled under the Trump administration.   
  • Were talking about probably decades of delays and setbacks, said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation.  
Related: Kennedy's autism data project draws more than 100 research proposals, sources say   OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Ishaan Tharoor: In Sudan and Afghanistan, disaster upon disaster   Harvard victory leaves scientists feeling vindicated but uncertain     Millions of Britons face higher risk of heart failure due to dirty air, study suggests     The silent killer increases your risk of stroke and dementia. Here's how to control it      The World Needs a Medical-Research Overhaul      FDA warns of H5N1 avian flu detection in raw cat food   Thanks for the tip, Cecilia Meisner!     Madelyn Rowley: Column: An international accident shaped my perspective on American health care      Powerful new painkiller ADRIANA shows promise in ending opioid dependence   Issue No. 2783
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Thu, 09/04/2025 - 09:42
96 Global Health NOW: The Rising Toll of PEPFARs Pause; The Philippines Sex Ed Debate; and Pelting the Town Red advocates are demanding the release of already-approved and critically needed PEPFAR funds that have yet to be disbursed. September 4, 2025 A counsellor with the AIDS Support Organization talks to people during an HIV clinic day at TASO Mulago service center. Kampala, Uganda, February 17. Hajarah Nalwadda/Getty The Rising Toll of PEPFARs Pause    As HIV programs across Africa take stock of a mounting human toll from PEPFAR-related disruptions to care this year, advocates are demanding the release of already-approved and critically needed PEPFAR funds that have yet to be disbursed, .     Escalating impact: Abrupt interruptions to HIV/AIDS programs in Tanzania and Uganda this year have led to babies being born with HIV, increased life-threatening infections, drug shortages, and clinic closures, according to a new .     Fears of a dark future: The PHR report also found that public trust in domestic government, U.S. foreign aid, and HIV care has been underminedwith interviewees expressing fears of a dark future of increased infections and fewer resources for care.     Frozen funds: While Congress ultimately exempted PEPFAR from widespread aid cuts, the Trump administration has of those funds, which will disappear when the fiscal year ends on September 30. 
  • Activists rallied near the White House yesterday, protesting the freeze and demanding immediate release of the funds, .  
They are impounding those funds. That is not legal, said Atul Gawande, former assistant administrator for global health at USAID, who spoke at the protest.
Related: HIV is on the rise among older Africans, but care and research overlook this group lessons from Kenya and South Africa   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Climate change may shift the geographic distribution of Indias Big Four venomous snakescobra, krait, Russells viper, and saw-scaled viperinto previously low-risk northern and northeastern states, led by researchers from Indias Dibru-Saikhowa Conservation Society and colleagues.  
A single shot of the antibiotic, benzathine penicillin G (BPG), is just as effective as the often-used 3-dose regimen in treating early stages of syphilis, ; authors say the findings could help simplify treatment at a time when BPG is in short supply globally, and syphilis rates are alarmingly high.  
Treatment guidelines for tungiasis, a neglected tropical parasitic disease affecting millions globally, ; the disease, caused by sand fleas that burrow into the skin, especially affects children and older adults, causing severe pain and physical impairment.  
Dengue disease severity in humans is exacerbated by waning immunity to Japanese encephalitis vaccination, a phenomenon that particularly affects people in areas like Nepal, which has long had vaccination for Japanese encephalitis but is now dealing with increasing dengue, and which speaks to the complex nature of flavivirus immunity.   U.S. Vaccine Policy News F.D.A. Official Overruled Scientists on Wide Access to Covid Shots   West Coast states band together to provide vaccine recommendation after RFK Jr. replaces CDC panel     7 burning questions for RFK Jr. as he faces senators on CDC turmoil and more     Can you get a COVID shot? Heres your fall vaccine guide     Trump "worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize" for COVID vaccines, Pfizer CEO says   TEEN PREGNANCY The Philippines Sex Ed Debate     Pregnancies among adolescent girls, 1014, are on the rise in the Philippines, surging 38% since 2019. While the crisis is sparking national concern, the deeply Catholic nation is divided on solutions.     Education gap: Many teens in the Philippines report receiving little to no reproductive health education, even on key topics like consent and contraception.  
  • Child and teen pregnancies in the country are among the highest in Asia, and abortion is illegal in all circumstances. 
Legislative clash: A bill to standardize comprehensive sex education and open access to sexual health services was introduced in 2022 but has long been stalledfiercely opposed by conservative and Catholic groups.  
  • The latest version of the bill was refiled last month. 
  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CHAGAS Dormant Danger in California    ~100,000 Californians may be unknowingly infected with Chagas disease, a potentially fatal parasitic illness that can lie undetected for years before triggering severe cardiac problems, .  
  Insidious impact: Chagas is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi carried by bloodsucking insects called kissing bugs. 
  • While the disease has been reported in 30 U.S. states, it is most prevalent in California, where four species of the insect have been identified. 
  • Researchers say confirmed cases are just the tip of the iceberg, estimating ~300,000 people in the U.S. could have it.  
Push for public health interventions: That is why researchers are urging U.S. health agencies to recognize Chagas as endemic, detailed in .  
  • Such a designation could increase surveillance and prevention efforts, . 
OPPORTUNITY Last Call for Early Bird Registration Rates for ICFP 2025!  Join fellow researchers, practitioners, and policymakers at the  in Bogota, Columbia, November 16, to exchange groundbreaking insights, spark collaborations, and shape the future of the sexual and reproductive health rights field. 
  • Early Bird registration ends TODAY, September 4
ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Pelting the Town Red  
Some people scold their children for fighting.     But back in 1945, when youths in Bu簽ol, Spain, began pummeling one another with tomatoes, it was summarily agreed: Lets do this every year!     80 years later, theyre still at it.     Billed as the worlds largest annual food fight, the towns Tomatina festival unites 120 tons of inedible, overripe tomatoes (custom grown for the event) with 20,000+ battle-ready punters.    There is one rule: to avoid injury, squish the tomato, then throw.    For one manic hour, red bullets rain over the skies of Bu簽ol, leaving competitors exhausted and ankles deep in this tomato puree, said Bu簽ol deputy mayor Sergio Galarza.    As if this wasnt enough of a fever dream already within hours of close of play, the streets are hosed down and cleaner than before. Like nothing ever happened.       QUICK HITS Elham Al-Oqabi: In Yemen as in Gaza, bombs and starvation are stealing the lives of our children     Finding strength amid sleepless nights: Ukraines hidden mental health toll     The pregnancy risk almost no one knows about     The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?     Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds     Ko to serve as president of global infectious disease organization     National Academies report outlines ways Trump administration could simplify research regulations     Land mines and tuberculosis are no match for Tanzanian rats sniffing out danger and disease   Issue No. 2782
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Wed, 09/03/2025 - 09:43
96 Global Health NOW: Warfare Over Welfare; Reviving Pediatric Health in Sudan; and Indias Diabetes Epidemic September 3, 2025 Mortar shells move along a conveyor at General Dynamics in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on August 20. Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Warfare Over Welfare     The global arms industry should be viewed as a commercial determinant of health, similar to tobacco and fossil fuels, .     Beyond war zones: how arms production and use fuel long-term public health crises by:   
  • Disrupting health and food systems  
  • Diverting funds from critically needed health infrastructure 
  • Increasing deadly access to firearms in civilian settings 
  • Harming the environment through pollution and contamination 
Low-income regions are consistently most vulnerable to such detrimental impacts.  
  Industry influence: Much like the tobacco, alcohol, and fossil fuel industries, arms companies use lobbying, media, research funding, and militainment to shape policy and public perception, .  
  Confronting the machine: The health sector must challenge the arms industry with the same resistance applied to Big Tobacco or Big Oil, exposing harms, advocating for peace and disarmament, and pushing for a shift in government spending from weapons to public welfare.  
  • It is often argued that there are no winners in waronly losers. This is not quite true. There is always a winner, and that is the arms industry. 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Respiratory infections from suspected COVID-19 or flu are surging in Gaza, where malnutrition renders many vulnerable to severe illness and depleted medical supplies complicate response efforts; 94 cases of Guillain-Barr矇 syndrome have also been reported, with 10 associated deaths.      Papua New Guinea confirmed its first human case of paralytic polioin an unvaccinated 4-year-old boy who developed acute flaccid paralysis caused by circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, establishing that the virus has transitioned from environmental detection to direct impact, .     An over-the-counter nasal spray, azelastine, may help prevent COVID-19 infection and a range of respiratory infections including the flu and RSV, that showed the antihistamine works as an antiviral.     1,000+ federal health employees have called for HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign arguing that he has put the health of all Americans at risk by spreading misinformation, undermining the CDC, and cutting the federal health workforce.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News House GOP keeps NIH funding Trump wanted to cut      Trumps HHS Agrees to Restore LGBTQ+, Reproductive Health Data  
Trump Wants Proof That Covid Vaccines Work. Its Easy to Find       Big shakeups to the childhood vaccination schedule could be nearing     Vaccines are becoming an electoral liability for Republicans      What to know about a Texas bill to let residents sue out-of-state abortion pill providers     GHN EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY Two-year-old Riham Ata lies on a gurney in one of Al-Buluk Hospital's severe malnutrition wards. Omdurman, Sudan, April 26. Giles Clarke/Avaaz via Getty Scarred by War, Saved by Care: Reviving Pediatric Health in Sudan  
In Sudan, childhood has become a casualty of war.     The war that erupted between rival forces in April 2023 has spiraled into a humanitarian emergency, , a Sudanese emergency medicine intern now based in Saudi Arabia.     Sudans children have suffered the most:   
  • Some  now need humanitarian aid. 
  • This year, 3.2 to 4 million Sudanese children under 5 will face life-threatening malnutrition.   
How can Sudans children be saved? Developed countries and international organizations must immediately step up to stabilize the situation and build back .      The takeaway: Reviving pediatric care in Sudan is more than just a humanitarian priority; it is a test of whether the world will protect Sudanese childrens futures during one of the worst wars of our time, Iraqi writes in an exclusive GHN commentary.     Ed. Note: Read Iraqis commentary for details on essential next steps.    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES Indias Diabetes Epidemic   India now accounts for a quarter of all global diabetes cases, with ~212 million people living with the disease8X as many as in 1990, and likely surpassing China and the U.S. combined.    How it happened: A combination of factors created the perfect conditions for diabetes to thrive.  
  • The consumption of imported fast foods: Sales of ultra-processed foods in India have risen by ~13% every year since 2011. 
  • Genetic traits: People of South Asian heritage are more likely to develop diabetes at a much lower BMI, even within what is considered a healthy weight range. 
  • Urbanization: Around 35% of Indians now live in cities, compared to 18% in the 1960s; by 2030, that number is expected to rise to 40%. 
   OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Confessions of an Ex-Anti-Vaxxer     Laid-off USAID workers struggle to find work as new job cuts approach     USAID's enduring impact on anaemia management must be preserved     No place in childrens hands: under-16s in England to be banned from buying energy drinks    
Vote by Dutch lawmakers threatens major primate research center     The new faces of cancer: Young, outspoken and online       These scientists found Alzheimer's in their genes. Here's what they did next      Analysis of NEJM Abstracts Confirms the Value of Peer Review     Theres something in the water. Khayelitshas kids want you to see it    Issue No. 2781
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Tue, 09/02/2025 - 09:59
96 Global Health NOW: Foundering CDC Awash in Troubles; How Displacement Erodes Global Health Security; and When Fear Goes Viral September 2, 2025 CDC staff and supporters outside of the agency's headquarters. Atlanta, Georgia, August 28. Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Foundering CDC Awash in Troubles    The ouster of its director, resignations by top staff, and massive cutbacks to programs threaten to overwhelm the U.S. CDC, causing some to question whether the vaunted public health agency will survive.      Updates: 
  • Nine former CDC directors who served Republican and Democratic presidents called a slew of actions by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unacceptable yesterday.  
  • The Trump administration tapped investor and HHS deputy director Jim ONeill to be CDC acting director, . ONeill, who had worked at HHS for six years, will try to calm the waters, but its unclear whether the director is expected only to follow the secretarys instructions, former FDA official Peter Pitts said. 
  • Outside groups are stepping in to fill the void left by changes at the CDC by disseminating health information, managing data that could otherwise disappear, and launching other efforts, . But former officials warn it may take decades to restore the U.S. public health infrastructure, . 
The Quote: If you chop off the heads of the agencies because they didnt pledge to go along with you, despite what the science says, then youre eroding public health from the foundation, Clevelands public health director David Margolius told the Times. 

Related:  
RFK Jr deputy named CDC acting director as confusion surrounds COVID vaccine availability      What chaos at the US CDC could mean for the rest of the world      Trump demands drugmakers justify COVID treatment success    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES EDITOR'S NOTE Professors: GHN Can Help You    We often hear from professors and teachers who love to use GHN as a teaching toolmaking it assigned reading and using it as a conversation starter: 
  • Get your students thinking, talking, and debating global health issues. 
  • Show real-world applications to complement textbook studies. 
  • Spark ideas for new projects and collaborations. 
Bonus: While more media are shifting to paywall models, GHN is still free. We also provide gift links for many paywalled articles. And weve increased the amount of opportunities we shareincluding webinars, fellowships, and networking events that can give your students a boost.     How you can help keep GHN strong and free: Please show your support by spreading the word with students, colleagues, and friends and sharing our free subscribe link: . And let us know when you do, or if you have suggestions to help us improve. Dayna  DATA POINT

1 billion+
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People living with mental health disorders, per new WHO data, with conditions such as anxiety and depression highly prevalent in all countries and communities, affecting people of all ages and income levels, and inflicting immense human and economic tolls. The Latest One-Liners    Police in Kenya fear the starvation cult linked to hundreds of deaths in 2023 is active again, with dozens of new graves of suspected victims found recently near Mombasa; officials believe that followers of cult leader Pastor Paul Mackenzie Nthenge escaped police raids and have revived the practices.       PAHO is urging countries to bolster surveillance, medical management, and vector-control against chikungunya and Oropouche viruses; 14 Americas countries have reported 212,000+ chikungunya cases this yeardown from last year, but the most-affected countries are seeing not just the Asian genotype circulating previously, but also the East/Central/South African genotype.     An analysis of 1,000+ cardiovascular clinical trials between 2017 and 2023 found that although womens participation has been improving in some areas, they are still consistently underrepresented in trials on arrhythmia, coronary heart disease, acute coronary syndrome, and heart failure.     Spouses tend to share psychiatric disorders, per a massive study in Nature Human Behaviour of ~15 million people in Taiwan, Denmark, and Sweden that shows the trend increases with each decade, across cultures, and generation.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News PAHO Targeted in New Round of US Funding Cuts     Trump plans a hefty tax on imported drugs, risking higher prices and shortages     EPA insiders policy reversal could shift PFAS cleanup costs from industry to taxpayers    
Can RFK Jr. take COVID vaccines off the market? Here's what vaccine law experts say  
RFK Jr. links SSRIs and mass shootings. What does science say?      Legal adviser warns NIH not to kill 900 grants a second time   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MIGRATION How Displacement Erodes Global Health Security    The overlooked and underfunded crisis of intra-African migration is leading to burgeoning health security risks, as growing populations are forced to live for years in overcrowded informal settlementswith little to no health care access.  
By the numbers: 80% of African migration occurs within the continent, accounting for 46% of global displacements.  
  • 38.8 million people were displaced in Africa between 2015-2024. 
Dangers in the gaps: Many of these people are denied care due to medical xenophobiaand are often excluded from a countrys disease surveillance and prevention effortsheightening outbreak threats, like the 2024 mpox resurgence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.    Call to action: Migrant-inclusive health systems, improved surveillance, and cross-border disease control are all critical in mitigating risks.       EPIDEMIOLOGY When Fear Goes Viral 
Epidemiologists have traced the transmission of a different sort of contagion: rumors.     Case in point: Historians have long been puzzled by The Great Fear, a wave of panic and upheaval that spread in France in 1789, helping to fuel the French Revolution.  
  • The basis and spread of the rumors have long been up for debate. A group of researchers turned to epidemic modeling for answers. 
  • Using documents like letters and historical road maps, the researchers created a detailed diagram of the rumors movements, likening the path to a transmission network for an epidemic, one researcher said.  
Data-driven history: , uses epidemiological tools to better understand social upheavaland the spread of misinformation.    OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Landslide in Sudan wipes out village and kills 1,000 people     'Lets sleep early so we dont feel the hunger': humanitarian workers in Gaza struggling in midst of famine      Do State Referendums on Abortion Work?     The Right to Care: A Feminist Legal Victory That Could Change the Americas     Tanzania: A Meal, Then a Pill - How Tanzania's Campaign is Transforming Child Health  
In Austria, Government Health Care Can Look a Bit Like a Spa  
Don't let a selfie be the end of you   Issue No. 2780
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Categories: Global Health Feed

Thu, 08/28/2025 - 08:56
96 Global Health NOW: CDC in Turmoil; As Cholera Crisis Deepens, Africa Launches Emergency Plan; and Quick! To the Bat Cuddle Ball! August 28, 2025 Susan Monarez testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in Washington, D.C., on June 25. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty CDC in Turmoil
The top public health agency in the U.S. faces an escalating crisis as the CDCs newly appointed director was abruptly ousted by the Trump administration yesterday, followed by the resignation of top agency officials in protest, .     The background: Only a month in her position, CDC director Susan Monarez clashed with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over refusing to support sweeping changes to U.S. vaccine policies, .  
  • Yesterday, the FDA limited COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk groups and removed authorization of one of the vaccines available to children, .  
  • After Monarez declined to commit to support the changes, the HHS released a statement announcing Monarez was no longer director. 
The latest: Monarez has refused to step down, with her lawyers saying she was targeted for refusing to support unscientific vaccine directives, and describing her firing as legally deficient as she has not resigned nor received a formal termination notice, . 
  • The attorneys also warned of systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science.  
The fallout: Four senior CDC officials resigned in protest, including the agency's chief medical officer, and leaders who oversaw vaccine safety and public health data. 
  • I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health, wrote Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in a departure email. 
GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES EDITOR'S NOTE Long Weekend for Labor Day    GHN will not be published Monday, September 1, in observance of the U.S. Labor Day holiday. Well be back with more news on Tuesday, September 2!  Dayna  The Latest One-Liners   Kenya is launching a mass vaccination campaign next week to stem a surging clade 1b mpox outbreak, per the Africa CDC; 370 cases and seven deaths have been reported since July 2024, with 157 cases documented in the last six weeks.     Countries in the Americas need to immediately increase surveillance and vaccination efforts against pertussis (whooping cough), PAHO announced on Tuesday; cases leapt to 43,751 in 2024a 10X increase over 2023and include antibiotic-resistant strains.     Denmark and Greenland have officially apologized for their roles in the forced use of contraception for Greenlandic Indigenous girls and women in the 1960s and 70s; ~4,500 Inuit women and girls received IUDs during that time, with many women saying they were not given details of the procedure and did not give their consent.     Disability-related data serve as an early warning indicator for long COVID-19 risk, especially in areas where post-COVID conditions remain underreported,  that analyzed years lived with disability (YLDs) caused by COVID-19 across 920 locations worldwide in 2020 and 2021.   INFECTIOUS DISEASES As Cholera Crisis Deepens, Africa Launches Emergency Plan     Africa CDC and the WHO have launched a continent-wide cholera emergency preparedness and response plan as outbreaks surge across Sudan and surrounding regions.     The new initiative aims to reduce cholera deaths by 90% and eradicate the disease in 20 countries by 2030 by funding vaccines and mobilizing case management support in the face of current outbreaks, .  
  • Fighting cholera is critical to building a self-reliant Africa that produces its own vaccines and secures its future, said Zambias President Hakainde Hichilema.  
Urgent need: The continent has seen an alarming rise in cholera, with 213,586 cases and 4,507 deaths reported among African Union member states in 2025 alone.     Sudan is struggling to contain its worst cholera outbreak in decades, with 96,000+ suspected cases and ~2,400 deaths over the last yearincluding ~5,000 cases in conflict-riven Darfur, where people in overcrowded camps around besieged El Fasher are highly vulnerable to the disease, .  
  • And the disease is now spreading in neighboring Chad, where Sudanese refugees have fled. So far, cholera has killed 63 people there and infected 938, . 
Related: Sudan: Devastating tragedy for children in El Fasher after 500 days of siege   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES FOREIGN AID CUTS The Cost of USAID Liquidation   
As USAID-funded projects and organizations shut down worldwide, they are being forced to rapidly offload millions of dollars worth of equipmentincluding cars, mosquito nets, textbooks, generators, printers, phones, mobile health clinics, and more.     Haste and waste: Aid workers, who say they have had little to no guidance from U.S. leadership about what to do with such supplies, have scrambled to sell, donate, or store equipment.  
  • But the scale and pace of the shutdowns mean much equipment is handed off without proper documentationor is simply being abandoned.  
  • Tons of food, antibiotics, contraceptives, and vaccine doses are expiring and being incinerated.  
The cost: The chaotic shutdown may cost taxpayers $6 billion annually for an undetermined amount of time, not including the sunk cost of wasted goods.        Related:

Polio could paralyse 200,000 children every year unless UK continues global funding

Malawi set to run out of TB drugs in a month after US, UK and others cut aid  

The US used to be a haven for research. Now, scientists are packing their bags.   

The high cost of donor withdrawal: implications for tuberculosis progress   

ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Quick! To the Bat Cuddle Ball! 
Spectral bats have 3-foot wingspans and outsized teeth, eat meat, and like to hug.  

If youre having trouble putting those characteristics together, its understandable. But the lighter side of the night-loving, winged carnivores has emerged from 502 videos of bat roosts in hollow trees in Costa Rica.

The videos by motion-activated cameras revealed never-before observed behaviors, including the family cuddle ball hug, and how a nursing females mate would bring home dead birds and mice to eat, per Marisa Tietge, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in Berlin. 

They also play with bugs and share batwing hugs when they return home after hunting. 

 So sweetespecially for mammals otherwise known as great false vampire bats. 

  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS States are tracking impostor nurses, a growing problem since the pandemic     Modernas latest COVID-19 vaccine is both approved and made in Canada     Blue states that sued kept most CDC grants, while red states feel brunt of Trump clawbacks     The CDC quietly scaled back a surveillance program for foodborne illnesses     How cats with dementia could help crack the Alzheimers puzzle     Estimating the predictability of questionable open-access journals     Whatever happened to ... the optimist who thinks games and music can change the world   Issue No. 2779
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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Categories: Global Health Feed

Wed, 08/27/2025 - 09:29
96 Global Health NOW: How the CDC Was Immobilized as Measles Spread; Nigerias Pregnant Pause; and Lessons From Botswana on Eliminating Pediatric HIV August 27, 2025 KFF Health News How the CDC Was Immobilized as Measles Spread    As Texas faced the countrys worst measles outbreak in decades, state and local health officials seeking help from the CDC were met with little to no responseas scientists at the federal agency were hampered by new restrictions under the Trump administration, .     Hands tied: The report details interwoven crises, both in Texas, where health facilities became overwhelmed and misinformation surged; and within federal health agencies facing communications crackdowns, stalled reports, and staff and budget cuts.    Deadly delays: As the outbreak exploded, Texas officials heard from the CDC only after a child had died on Feb. 26.  
  • Meanwhile, outbreaks spread to five U.S. states and Mexico, sickening 4,500+ and killing at least 16. 
The Quote: All of us at CDC train for this moment, a massive outbreak, said a CDC researcher. All this training and then we werent allowed to do anything. 
  Growing threat: Measles continues to spread nationwide, and childhood vaccination rates continue to decline.  
  • Missouris kindergarten measles vaccination rate has fallen to 90%below the 95% threshold needed for community immunity, .  
  • Ohios kindergarten vaccination rates have reached a new low of 85.4%, .  
Related:     Alabama announces first measles case of the year     A 1990 Measles Outbreak Shows How the Disease Can Roar Back    GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   A roundworm infection discovered after a childs sepsis death in Indonesia has heightened concerns about the prevalence of such infectionsand their relationship to childhood stunting amid poverty and malnutrition.     In a key step toward a Chagas vaccine, researchers have isolated and produced neutralizing antibodies to two of the disease-causing parasites proteins, .  
Popular AI chatbots give inconsistent answers to queries about suicide, and their guardrails around suicide-related questions can be bypassed, .      C-section deliveries in South Asia rose from 8.5% in 2005 to 21.5% in 2021, leading researchers to call for policy measures including payment reforms and more regulation in private health care settings.   U.S. and Global Health Policy News WHO's Low- And Mid-Rank Staff at Risk in Face of Pressures to Preserve Costly Jobs at Top  
Cut to the bone: The cost of ration cuts and delivery delays in Kenya's refugee camps   
What USAID cuts mean for future mortality rates     RFK Jr. endorses push for religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates     Drowning prevention program comes to a halt at the CDC     A Tuberculosis Lab Makes a Community Healthier, Science Stronger    DATA POINT

1 in 4
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People globally lack access to safe drinking water.
  MATERNAL HEALTH Nigerias Pregnant Pause    The loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID and the resurgence of the Boko Haram militant group in Nigeria have increased dangers for pregnant women in the countrywhich already has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. 
  • 1 in 4 maternal deaths worldwide occurred in Nigeria in 2023. 
  • 1 in 100 Nigerian women dies giving birth.  
Contributing factors:  
  • A chronically underfunded health system and long distances to health care. 
  • In areas like Borno state, rocked by Boko Haram attacks, health workers also report difficulty recruiting doctors. 
Major losses: Nigeria approved an emergency $200 million toward the countrys health budget, but family planning services expect cuts of almost 97% in 2025, leaving little support for pregnant women.       GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES INFECTIOUS DISEASES Lessons From Botswana on Eliminating Pediatric HIV    Botswana is the first African nation to secure the WHOs Gold Tier certification for eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission: By 2023 just 1.2% of infants born in the country contracted HIV.    How did they do it? 
  • Early adoption of the WHOs Option浮+ policy, offering lifelong antiretroviral therapy to all pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV.  
  • Free maternity services with high antenatal care coverage and facility-based births, ensuring universal access. 
  • High-quality lab services and repeat maternal testing to identify infections early and prevent vertical transmission.  
The country also devotes sustained government funding to HIV programs as part of the annual budget, uses digital health systems to drive universal antenatal care, and engages the community to tackle HIV stigma.      OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS It happened in seconds: residents count the cost of deadly floods that have left Pakistan in crisis  

The status of drowning prevention and control in the region of the Americas     I was imprisoned for six months for being HIV-positive'      EU approves Gilead's new injection for preventing HIV     'My Kid, My Rules': Central Asia's Child Abuse Epidemic     Generative AI model scans emergency notes to identify high-risk avian influenza exposures     The Rise of Pronatalism in the U.S.: The Risks to Reproductive and Sexual Health Outcomes     Modern Dentistry Is a Microplastic Minefield     Scientists found the gene that makes Aussie skinks immune to deadly snake venom   Issue No. 2778
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on and follow us on Instagram and X .

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