Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

Jérôme Fortin, Paul Masset, and Simon Thebault have received the Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Award from Brain Canada for their research in brain cognition, brain cancer, and neurological disabilities.  

The McGill researchers are among 22 successful applicants from across the country. They will each receive $100,000 in research funding distributed over a period of two years. 

96 Global Health NOW: A New Vaccine for the Meningitis Belt; How Early Unions Endanger Girls; and Bologna Slows Down—and Sparks a Showdown View this email in your browser September 30, 2025 Forward Share Post 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 India’s 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 people’s airways, allowing bacteria to enter the bloodstream and then lead to new infections of close contacts. 
  The Quote: “It’s a powerful new weapon that, with wider rollout, has the potential to protect millions of vulnerable people,” said the University of Southampton’s Michael Head. 
  The Telegraph  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, per an Australian National University and King's College London study of data from ~500 patients across six countries. News Medical

A new, affordable human papillomavirus test delivers results in less than an hour with no specialized laboratory required, per research in Nature Communications led by Rice University, in collaboration with colleagues in Mozambique and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Rice University (news release)    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 prospective cohort study reveals—a far higher prevalence of warning signs than previous studies found. STAT 
  Opioid use disorder diagnoses among commercially insured U.S. patients soared ~40% post-pandemic—from 386 patients per 100,000 in 2021 to 539 patients per 100,000 in 2024, FAIR Health's Opioid Tracker shows; the hardest-hit states were Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Delaware. Axios    U.S. and Global Health Policy News Trump’s USAID pause stranded lifesaving drugs. Children died waiting. – The Washington Post (gift link)    Fragile N.C. Residents Lose Medicaid Support for Food and Housing Health – The New York Times (gift link)    HHS would furlough nearly 32,500 in shutdown – Axios     Researchers are relieved at Trump’s likely pick for National Cancer Institute – Science

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list – Politico 

Cannabis stocks soar after Trump shares video promoting drug’s use for seniors – The Guardian  CHILD MARRIAGE How Early Unions Endanger Girls    Child marriage—both formal and informal—continues to harm millions of girls globally, finds Plan International’s 2025 State of the World’s Girls report, 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, reports CNN.  

• 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, per Plan International. 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 – The Guardian (commentary)   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ROAD SAFETY Bologna Slows Down—and Sparks a Showdown     Last year, Bologna became Italy’s 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 policy’s impact, advocates say, and crash fatalities rose again in 2025. 

• But other Italian cities—including Milan and Rome—have now followed Bologna’s lead, issuing their own slow-street policies.  

Bloomberg CityLab  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Halal concerns drive vaccine hesitancy as Indonesia fights measles outbreak – AP

‘I wanted to be dead’: Survivors of Assad’s prisons battle trauma and disease – The Telegraph    Louisiana issues warrant for California doctor accused of mailing abortion pills – The Guardian    Ecuadorian scientists cleared of criminal charges in COVID-19 testing case – Science     Mpox Outbreaks Expose Global Vulnerability As Smallpox Immunity Fades, Experts Warn – Science Nigeria    Gender differences in opioid and stimulant poisoning in the central region of Iran – Nature Scientific Reports    Gaps in the global health research landscape for mpox – BMC Medicine / BioMed Central BMC Medicine     Want to do disruptive science? Include more rookie researchers – Nature  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 Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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Doctors in Gaza are warning of a surge in respiratory illnesses as families – cut off from basic supplies – burn plastic and cardboard to cook and keep warm. They say the outbreak will worsen unless life-saving medicines, fuel and food are allowed into the devastated territory.

Faced with a deadly outbreak of cholera and a lack of sanitation infrastructure, one Haitian mother sparked a community movement that has transformed her neighbourhood – and saved multiple lives.

96 Global Health NOW: New Consensus to Tackle NCDs—Without the U.S.; Wrapping Babies in Malaria Protection; and Contraceptive Stigma in Sierra Leone View this email in your browser September 29, 2025 Forward Share Post 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 NCDs—Without 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, reports Health Policy Watch.     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, per the WHO. 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 issues—though he did not elaborate on those problems, reports NPR Goats and Soda. 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, reports The Guardian.  

• “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, told Bhekisisa’s Mia Malan (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 Fund’s Jane Burston, per Devex. 

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES DATA POINT

~3.3 million
———————
The number of lives saved around the world by American foreign aid in 2023. —Our World in Data
  The Latest One-Liners   1,000+ children in Indonesia fell ill with food poisoning last week, per the BBC—bringing total cases to 6,000+ since January—in 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 Jakarta Post     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. CBS    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 commentary published in The Lancet Global Health that urges other health entities to adopt the name for the condition, which could affect ~25 million people. NPR Goats and Soda     Flu in U.S. children is leading to more cases of severe encephalopathy and related deaths, per new CDC data; the nation logged 280 pediatric flu deaths last year—the deadliest apart from the H1N1 pandemic in 2009–2010—as fewer children receive flu vaccines. NBC  U.S. and Global Health Policy News Ebere Okereke: America First in Global Health: How Africa Should Respond – Think Global Health (commentary)     Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed ‘Hostile’ to Cars – Bloomberg CityLab    ‘Completely shattered.’ Changes to NSF’s graduate student fellowship spur outcry – Science    White House considers funding advantage for colleges that align with Trump policies – The Washington Post (gift link)    Medical Groups Warn Against Visa Fees for Foreign Doctors – The New York Times (gift link) 

WHO Staff in Geneva Call for Freeze in Layoffs and Independent Review of Downsizing Plans – Health Policy Watch  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, finds a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.     Key findings: Among 400 pairs of moms and children who used baby wraps treated with permethrin—an insecticide commonly sprayed on bed nets and clothes—malaria infections fell by ~65%, per the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases.  

• 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.  

• “There’s a lot of the day when you’re not under a net. Baby wraps fill in some of those gaps when a net isn’t particularly helpful,” author Ross Boyce told MedPage Today.  

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, per the country’s 2019 Demographic and Health Survey.  

• The country is part of the FP2030 initiative, which aims to make modern contraception available to all women and girls by 2030. 

IPS 

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

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers were badly wounded in Gaza. Here's what saved them – NPR Goats and Soda

The forgotten pandemic: Hong Kong influenza in Australia (1968–1970) – Medical Journal of Australia

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

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

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

Some people tape their mouths shut at night. Doctors wish they wouldn’t – AP 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 Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

Please send the Global Health NOW free sign-up link to friends and colleagues: http://www.globalhealthnow.org/subscribe

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ABOUT
SUPPORT US
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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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