Politics & Policies
Regulations to fight climate change likely will be casualties of the incoming Trump administration, but environmental experts taking stock of the changing American political landscape said that work in the field will continue elsewhere and that a broad-based rollback of U.S. environmental protection will prove easier said than done.
2015 marks the fourth year that the Kaiser Family Foundation has been analyzing donor government funding for family planning, tracking progress against commitments made at the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning.
Last week, the world was shocked by the news that Donald Trump would become the next United States President. In this post, Emory University’s James Michiel takes a first look at how this surprising result might influence global health in the coming years.
Programs, Grants & Awards
UN World Toilet Day highlights the urgent need to address a global sanitation crisis by providing toilets and sewage management systems and to aggressively implement programs of WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene).
Research
Domestic violence during pregnancy needs to be addressed at different levels in Nepal, where women are often dependent on others for access to health care.
Global performance of epidemiologic surveillance of Zika virus.
Dengue fever, caused by the dengue virus (DENV), is now the most common arbovirus transmitted disease globally. One novel approach to control DENV is to use the endosymbiosis bacterium, Wolbachia pipientis, to limit DENV replication inside the primary mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti.
Diseases & Disasters
Scientists say they may have found a way to protect babies in the womb from the harmful effects of Zika.
In a Sierra Leone village considered an Ebola “hotspot” during the epidemic, researchers discovered 1 year later more than a dozen people with minor symptoms of infection that had gone undetected.
Since the beginning of 2016, the humanitarian partners working in cholera response identified a risky scenario created by the increase in the number of suspected cholera cases and the decrease of funding to fight the disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that it no longer considers the Zika epidemic a public health emergency of international concern.
Technology
Funding for phase one of pilot deployments of the world’s first malaria vaccine in sub-Saharan Africa has been secured and immunization campaigns will begin in 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
Environmental Health
The Flint water crisis hasn’t gone away. Thousands of the city’s residents are still at risk from the water supply. The city has switched back to Detroit water, but experts say the distribution system will never be the same.
The EU’s environment watchdog has said air pollution is “the single largest environmental health hazard in Europe.” Around 467,000 premature deaths in 41 European countries were linked to air pollution in 2013.
Back in late September, Polk County officials spilled five gallons of fuel while refueling a generator at the Babson Park Water Treatment Plant. How do we know this? We know this because Gov. Rick Scott wants us to know this.
The Trudeau government has taken important steps to assert Canadian leadership on environmental issues after years of neglect under the Harper government. Now it plans to phase out almost all use of coal to generate electricity by 2030, a move that will cut greenhouse gas emissions while producing significant health benefits from cleaner air.
Equity & Disparities
Unsafe drinking water is a bigger problem for minority communities in the US than for white communities, suggests a new study from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
GSK has today been ranked first in the Access to Medicine Index for the fifth time, taking a leadership position in research & development; pricing, manufacturing and distribution; and product donations.
Disparities in health and health care remain a persistent challenge in the United States. Disparities not only result in inequities but also limit continued improvement in quality of care and population health and result in unnecessary health care costs.
Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health
Community health workers (CHWs) have the potential to reduce child mortality by improving access to care, especially in remote areas. Uganda has one of the highest child mortality rates globally. Moreover, rural areas bear the highest proportion of this burden. The optimal performance of CHWs is critical.
Sebastian Vollmer and colleagues (April, 2014) conclude that “the contribution of economic growth to the reduction in early childhood undernutrition in developing countries is very small, if it exists at all.”
Diarrheal disease is the second-leading cause of death for children under the age of five. And it disproportionately affects kids in the developing world, where it’s tougher to access safe water and medical care.
The global news round up was prepared by SS.
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