96 Global Health NOW: COVID-19 Information Page Overhauled; Another Deadly Fireworks Factory Explosion in India; and Adolescent Girls Need Our Support View this email in your browser April 21, 2025 Forward Share Post COVID-19 Information Page Overhauled
Federal websites once used for sharing information on vaccines, testing, and treatments for COVID-19 now focus on the theory that the pandemic originated in a Wuhan lab and criticize the Biden administration’s handling of the pandemic, reports the AP. 

The websites covid.gov and Covidtests.gov redirect to a White House page entitled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19,” which includes:

• A five-point breakdown making the case for lab leak origins.


• Accusations that federal officials like former NIAID director Anthony Fauci engaged in “obstruction” of information.


• Criticisms of the Biden administration, the WHO, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for the pandemic response, including masks, lockdowns, and social distancing.

An unsettled question: Some federal agencies have said research supports a spillover event that likely occurred at a Wuhan market, while others say a laboratory accident is possible. Most scientists say key data remains missing, reports NPR Shots.

Scientists react: COVID researchers studying both theories said the new website includes inaccurate, oversimplified, and misleading information, with one virologist describing the page as “pure propaganda.” 

• The overhaul reflects “a broader practice of officials recently scrapping health websites that do not align with their views,” reports The New York Times (gift link). 

Related: 

CDC considers narrowing its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations – CNN via ABC Boston

I Was There: A Public Health Worker's Response to the COVID.gov Rewrite – Infection Control Today (commentary) GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Children in Burkina Faso have faced 2,483 documented rights violations amid escalating conflict in the country between 2022 and 2024, a UN report finds; violations include abductions, injuries from explosive devices, and recruitment into armed groups. APA News

Mercury emissions near small-scale gold mines can be measured in wild fig trees’ growth rings, finds a new study in Frontiers in Environmental Science, the first to show hardwoods’ potential as a biomonitor of gaseous elemental mercury. The Washington Post via MSN

Receipt paper from many U.S. retailers contains high levels of bisphenol S, a chemical linked to cancer and reproductive problems; even brief contact with some receipts can result in enough chemical absorption to exceed safety standards laid out in California’s Proposition 65. Environmental Health News

A U.S. attorney has sent letters to at least three medical journals accusing them of political bias and suggesting that the journals mislead readers, in a move scientists and doctors say could have a “chilling effect” on research publications. The New York Times (gift link) U.S. Health and Science Policy News Count the Dead by the Millions – Rolling Stone

Activists pile 200 coffins outside State Department to protest cuts to global AIDS relief – The 19th

‘Ripple effect:’ In US, anti-immigrant policy strains child and eldercare – Al Jazeera

USAID cuts halt Yale-led efforts to build global health infrastructure – Yale Daily News

NIH freezes funds to Harvard and four other universities, but can’t tell them – Science

Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More – ProPublica GHN EXCLUSIVE UPDATE Another Deadly Fireworks Factory Explosion in India
A large fireworks factory explosion in southern India on April 13 killed eight people and injured seven others in Kailasapatnam village in Andhra Pradesh, per The Times of India.

GHN Series: The GHN team learned of the explosion after publishing a two-part series on the dangerous conditions in fireworks factories in the southern Indian city of Sivakasi by freelance journalist Kamala Thiagarajan:

• ‘Invisible Suffering’: Deadly Risks in India’s Fireworks Factories


• Fireworks and Heartbreak in a Hard-Hit Indian Village

Follow-up: Thiagarajan reports that the articles were included in a formal petition last week to an Indian court seeking legal action supporting the victims of fireworks factory explosions.

She also notes that a local charity has contributed to the purchase of a prosthetic leg for factory worker Muthukutti, whose story was shared in the series’ second article. His left leg had to be amputated after a February 12, 2021, explosion at Sree Mariyammal Fireworks Factory near Sivakasi. GHN EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY Wajir girls reading together. 2021. icon (be one) K / Nicholas Oreyo The World’s Adolescent Girls Need Our Support   
As global funding cuts and policy shifts disrupt health and development programs around the world, “teenagers—particularly teenage girls—are especially vulnerable,” write Evalin Karijo and Karen Austrian, who lead the Population Council’s Girl Innovation, Research, and Learning Center.

• The U.S. foreign assistance freeze could deny access to contraceptive care for ~11.7 million women and girls this year—upping the risk of unintended pregnancies and maternal deaths.

“The ripple effects will be devastating,” they say—leading to “more child marriages, school dropouts, and economic hardships that will persist for generations.”

Yet investing in teen girls pays off, making girls more likely to stay in school, secure stable jobs, and contribute to household income. 

• Every dollar invested in adolescent girls’ empowerment in Africa by 2040, a recent report estimates, can generate more than a tenfold return in economic impact.

Karijo and Austrian see a clear pathway to achieving these economic gains. They point to evidence backing a girl-centered approach and offer models, including a program in Kenya that helped girls stay in school and delayed marriage and pregnancy for years after the program’s end. READ THE FULL COMMENTARY GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH RIGHTS Seeking Abortion Training in Mexico
In the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, more than a dozen U.S. states have banned virtually all abortions, and more than 100 abortion clinics have closed. 

To get training in providing abortions, a small but growing number of providers have sought opportunities in Mexico. 

• In 2023, Fundación MSI trained nine American doctors to perform abortions at Mexican clinics.


• This year, it is on track to train more than 50—and has the capacity to train up to 300 doctors a year, says MSI Latin America’s managing director.

Every abortion ban in the U.S. permits abortions to save a patient’s life. But without adequate training, doctors may not be skilled enough to perform abortions even in those dire circumstances.

The Guardian OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Haiti ‘awash’ with guns leaving population ‘absolutely terrified’ – UN News

Why is tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease, on the rise in the UK? – Euronews

ACA preventive care case reaches Supreme Court – Axios

What the Newest mRNA Vaccines Could Do Beyond COVID – News Medical

Relieve the suffering: palliative care for the next decade – The Lancet (commentary)

Rapid geographic expansion of local dengue community transmission in Peru – PLOS

Nitrogen-fertilised grassland more likely to trigger hay fever, study suggests – The Telegraph

A horse therapy program in Namibia brings joy to children with learning disabilities – AP Issue No. 2711
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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96 Global Health NOW: Global Health NOW: Fireworks and Heartbreak in an Indian Village; U.S. Administration Seeks Data and Deep Cuts; and Moose See TV “For most people, fireworks mean joy.” View this email in your browser April 17, 2025 Forward Share Post Muthukutti, 23, endured the amputation of his left leg after the 2021 Sree Mariyammal Fireworks Factory explosion outside Sivakasi, India. Kamala Thiagarajan Fireworks and Heartbreak in a Hard-Hit Indian Village  
SIVAKASI, India—Of the 650 families who live in Surangudi village, most have lost either a limb or a loved one to fireworks, says social activist Vijay Kumar.

Tens of thousands of workers in Sivakasi produce 50,000 tons of firecrackers annually—most of India's fireworks.
 
But they also risk deadly fires and explosions in their work. 
 
Deadly blast: A February 12, 2021, explosion killed 27 workers at the Sree Mariyammal Fireworks Factory and injured dozens more.

• Many of the killed and injured were from Surangudi village, including Muthukutti, 23, whose left leg had to be amputated.

• His aunt, Shanmugavadivu, also worked in the factory and had third-degree burns on her chest, stomach, arms, and legs.

Waiting for compensation: While both received $1,160 in compensation from the Tamil Nadu state government, they are still waiting for much larger compensation payments from the factory owners.
 
The Quote: “For most people, fireworks mean joy,” says Kumar, director of the Human Resource Foundation, which aids fireworks factory victims in the Sivakasi area. “But for those whose lives are so closely associated with it, it’s a source of sorrow and heartbreak.”
 
Kamala Thiagarajan for Global Health NOW
 
Ed. Note: Our thanks go to Padmavathy Krishna Kumar who shared the idea for this topic and received an honorable mention in the 2025 Untold Global Health Stories contest, co-sponsored by Global Health NOW and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. READ THE FULL STORY GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
The COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on measles is coming into focus, with a new analysis published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases showing a steady decline in disease incidence over 30 years—but a stark drop in vaccination in 2021. CIDRAP 

The Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab has been approved for use in the EU; however, only a “very small portion” of patients will be eligible for the drug, which is sold under the brand name Leqembi and is authorized in the U.S., U.K., and Japan. DW

Arsenic levels in paddy rice could significantly rise with climate change, finds a new study that showed increased temperatures coupled with rising carbon dioxide levels could lead to higher concentrations of inorganic arsenic in rice, potentially raising lifetime health risks for populations in Asia, where rice is a staple food, by 2050. Phys.org

Limiting PPE to just N95 respirators late in the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore health facilities was effective in keeping staff safe while also lowering costs and curbing medical-related waste, finds a study published in JAMA Network Open. CIDRAP U.S. POLICY Administration Seeks Data and Deep Cuts
As U.S. federal health agencies continue to see seismic shifts under the Trump administration, two key developments reported by The Washington Post give insight into some of the administration’s imminent objectives: 

Deeper health cuts: A preliminary draft of the 2026 fiscal year budget obtained by the Post (gift link) reveals the Trump administration is seeking a $40 billion cut to HHS’s discretionary budget, roughly one-third of the agency’s discretionary spending, and is planning major reorganization and consolidation of agencies within the administration. 

ICE seeks Medicare data: U.S. immigration officials and Elon Musk’s DOGE team are seeking “unprecedented” access to sensitive Medicare databases as a way to track down undocumented immigrants, the Post has found (gift link), despite the fact that undocumented immigrants are barred from Medicare benefits. 

Related:

In the middle of a hepatitis outbreak, U.S. shutters the one CDC lab that could help – NPR

RFK Jr. contradicts CDC on causes of autism – Axios
 
Top NIH nutrition researcher studying ultraprocessed foods departs, citing censorship under Kennedy – CNN

Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards – The Washington Post

Exclusive: US consumer safety agency to stop collecting swaths of data after CDC cuts – Reuters GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CAMBODIA Fifty Years After ‘Year Zero’ 
Five decades have now passed since the declaration of “Year Zero,” when Pol Pot and the brutal Khmer Rouge regime seized power in Cambodia. 

• From 1975 to 1979, 2 million+ people were killed in a wave of racial genocide, widespread famine, forced labor, and executions.

Those atrocities continue to shape Cambodian life today, writes Sophal Ear in a commentary for The Conversation: “It’s etched into every Cambodian’s bones.”

A legacy of trauma: Research has found elevated rates of PTSD among survivors and their descendants. 

Ongoing need for justice: While a tribunal convicted three Khmer Rouge senior leaders for crimes against humanity in 2018, per the International Bar Association, critics say many key perpetrators were never held to account. 

The next generation: The majority of Cambodia’s population is under 30—“with no more than an inkling” of the genocide, leading survivors to start a storytelling initiative, reports AFP via France24. 

Related: 

Unsung No More, Cambodia’s Malaria Hero – USAID via Medium (from August 2024) 

Q&A: Patrick Heuveline on the Khmer Rouge’s long-term impact on Cambodia – UCLA Newsroom ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Moose See TV  
Forget high-octane car chases and whodunnit cliffhangers. The real formula for suspense TV? Not knowing when a moose might show up.
 
The megahit Swedish TV show “Den stora älgvandringen” (“The Great Elk Trek”) began airing this Tuesday, serving up a must-see livestream of mostly nature scenery, occasionally punctuated by moose crossing the Ångerman River.
 
More than binge-worthy, some fans canʼt seem to focus on anything else. But how does one consume 20 days of round-the-clock content? By rearranging their entire lives.

• Kids are missing school during the migration. And “Sleep? Forget it. I don’t sleep,” said one viewer.  

The “slow TV” sensation is stress-relieving even for those who work on it—but itʼs complicated, said superfan William Garp Liljefors.
 
“I feel relaxed, but at the same time I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s a moose. Oh, what if there’s a moose? I can’t go to the toilet!’”
 
AP QUICK HITS Haiti: Escalating Violence Puts Population at Grave Risk –  Human Rights Watch

Colombia declares health emergency after dozens die of yellow fever – BBC

Rising temperatures could cancel most outdoor school sports in summer by 2060s – Japan Times

Reconsidering Ebola virus nomenclature: a call for a stigma-free and precise terminology – The Lancet (commentary)

CDC advisors broaden RSV vaccine recommendations to at-risk adults in their 50s – Endpoints News

Immune system proteins involved in severe parasitic disease identified – Medical Xpress

What impact will driving at 17 have on road safety? –  Euronews

AI-boosted cameras help blind people to navigate – Nature Issue No. 2710
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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96 Global Health NOW: Pandemic Agreement Reached; A Brain Bank Hangs in the Balance; and Spore-Driven Threats 190 countries agree to working draft of global pandemic treaty View this email in your browser April 16, 2025 Forward Share Post Pandemic agreement negotiations co-chair Anne-Claire Amprou and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus after a consensus on the pandemic treaty at the WHO headquarters, Geneva, on April 16. Christopher Black/WHO/AFP via Getty Pandemic Agreement Reached 
Around 2 a.m. today at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters—after 3+ years of back-and-forth between 190 countries—the 32-page working draft of a global pandemic treaty was finally highlighted in one color: green. 

“It's adopted,” negotiations co-chair Anne-Claire Amprou said, “to thundering applause,” reports France24. 

The approved pact sets guidelines for international collaboration in a future global health crisis, and is a victory for the WHO at a moment of geopolitical upheaval, reports the AP. 

• The agreement signals that “in our divided world, nations can still work together to find common ground and a shared response,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Key provisions include giving the WHO an overview of global medical supply chains; compelling manufacturers to allocate medical supplies to the WHO during a pandemic; and paving the way for more local vaccine and drug production, reports Reuters.

Final sticking points related to the technology transfer clause, which governs how drug and vaccine manufacturers share information and tools for medicine and vaccine production. 

• Such information will be shared on a “mutually agreed upon” rather than mandatory basis, per Euronews. 

Still being ironed out: the creation of a new pathogen access and benefit sharing system—in which countries would share pathogen samples with drugmakers in return for access to vaccines and medicine.

Notably absent: The U.S., which was barred from participating following President Trump’s January decision to withdraw from the WHO, and which is not expected to sign the treaty.

What’s next: Final adoption is pending approval by the World Health Assembly in May. 

Related: WHO tests pandemic response with Arctic ‘mammothpox’ outbreak – The Telegraph GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
The UK Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law, a landmark decision following years of debate that could have significant implications for how sex-based rights and services apply across Scotland, England, and Wales. BBC

A new antibiotic is effective against gonorrhea, finds a new study published in The Lancet; if approved, it could become the first new class of antibiotic for the STI in 20+ years—a key tool as antibiotic resistance grows. NBC News

Children’s mattresses can emit toxic chemicals linked with developmental and hormonal disorders, two new studies have found; high levels of chemicals like phthalates and flame retardants were found near children’s beds, found a study published in Environmental Science & Technology, and a companion study identified mattresses as a key source of exposure. CNN

The autism diagnosis rate among U.S. 8-year-olds increased from 1 in 36 in 2020 to 1 in 31 in 2022, a new CDC report shows; rates among boys remained higher than among girls, and, as in 2020, were higher among Asian, Black, and Hispanic children than among white children. CNN ALZHEIMERʼS A Brain Bank Hangs in the Balance
An NIH funding pause has disrupted one of the most expansive Alzheimer’s research programs in the U.S., with researchers especially worried about the fate of 4,000 donated brains being preserved for research. 

• The Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Washington—one of the public universities hardest hit by the freeze—is home to a range of decades-long studies, including one following 450 people until death.

A critical hub: The brain bank, which provided researchers with ~11,000 tissue samples last year alone, requires special facilities and staffing. 

• Even the temporary pause could upend long-term trials, therapy pipelines, and current patient care, researchers say. 

NBC

Related: As dementia rates increase, experts warn hospital emergency rooms are underprepared – AP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES FUNGAL INFECTIONS Spore-Driven Threats
In the wake of the WHO’s warning of the need for more treatments and diagnostics for fungal pathogens, scientists are laying out evidence of a growing fungal threat:

• Perennial maladies like vaginal yeast infections and athlete’s foot are getting harder to treat, and antifungal-resistant pathogens like Candida auris have become a “silent pandemic” in hospitals.

• Invasive fungal infections are killing ~2.5 million people each year—twice the global fatalities of tuberculosis.

Because of global warming, more fungi are adapting to temperatures that could lead to invasive infections in humans. 

• It also means an increase in disruptive weather events like dust storms, which lead to the spread of spore-driven diseases like Valley fever. 

The Telegraph QUICK HITS After delays, first vaccine advisory meeting under RFK Jr. is underway – NPR Shots

5% of US cancers may be caused by medical imaging radiation – DW 

Emergency rooms treat a gunshot wound every half-hour – UPI

Oropouche virus ‘massively underdiagnosed’ in Latin America, new study suggests – The Telegraph

Paris air pollution is down 50% after its radical bike-friendly transformation – Fast Company

We’re on the verge of a universal allergy cure – Vox

Africa needs innovative financing solutions to prevent health systems from collapsing, say experts – Semafor (commentary) Thanks for the tip, Dave Cundiff!

Exclusive: the most-cited papers of the twenty-first century – Nature Issue No. 2709
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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96 Global Health NOW: Deadly Risks in India’s Fireworks Factories; Keeping Warm Can Be Toxic in Mongolia; and An Extra Coat of Coolness in Cape Town View this email in your browser April 15, 2025 Forward Share Post Millions of Indians celebrate the Diwali Festival with fireworks—without realizing the dangerous conditions factory workers in Sivakasi endure. Gurugram, India, October 31, 2024. Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty ‘Invisible Suffering’: Deadly Risks In India’s Fireworks Factories
SIVAKASI, India—The explosion shook the ground beneath the fireworks factory and threw him into the air.

The February 19 blast broke bones in both his legs and broke his right arm. His face is covered in scars from third-degree burns, and both his eyes have been badly damaged.

“I couldn’t see anything but darkness, and I couldn’t open my eyes,” Palpandey, 31, said from his hospital room days after the explosion. “I’ve never felt fear like that in my life.”

Fireworks’ Toll:

• Explosions like the one at Neerathilingam Fireworks are not uncommon in this city in Southern India that produces nearly 90% of the country’s fireworks and employs tens of thousands of workers like Palpandey (who uses only his first name).


• Employers typically pay for injured workers’ initial care, but then workers are often on their own in subsequent months and years.


• A 2023–2024 government report said 91 workers were killed in the most recent year, but only those killed at the site of an explosion are counted—not those who die later.

The Quote: “The suffering of these people who die later is invisible—they don’t show up on government counts of deaths,” says social activist Vijay Kumar.

Kamala Thiagarajan for Global Health NOW

Ed. Note: Our thanks go to Padmavathy Krishna Kumar, who shared the idea for this topic and received an honorable mention in the 2025 Untold Global Health Stories contest, co-sponsored by Global Health NOW and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.

Look for part II of the series tomorrow: “Fireworks and Heartbreak in a Hard-Hit Village.” READ THE FULL STORY GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Denmark could eliminate cervical cancer by 2040, the Danish Cancer Society says, as a national HPV vaccination campaign has brought the rate down to lower than 10 out of 100,000 women; the WHO elimination standard is lower than four per 100,000 women. The Local Denmark

Female genital mutilation is linked to significant long-term health complications, including a 2X+ risk of prolonged or obstructed labor in childbirth and a 4.4 times higher likelihood of experiencing PTSD, per a new study in BMC Public Health that analyzes evidence from ~30 countries. WHO (news release)
 
A group of national organizations representing America’s academic, medical, and independent research institutions announced a joint effort to develop a new indirect costs funding model for federal research grants to submit to the federal government. Association of American Medical Colleges

Participants of a study in Tanzania who were cured of infection with Wuchereria bancrofti worms—which cause lymphatic filariasis—showed a ~60% reduction in HIV infections in a follow-up comparison of two study periods published in The Lancet HIV. German Center for Infection Research (news release) U.S. and Global Health Policy News Trump plan would slash State Dept. funding by nearly half, memo says – The Washington Post (gift link)

Trump eyes huge climate research cuts at NOAA – Axios

Federal government to remove gender dysphoria from protected disabilities list – The 19th

Free US family planning clinics face financial ruin after White House freezes funds – The Guardian

Impact of CDC Hepatitis Lab Closure on US Public Health – Contagion Live

EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Most Polluters – Undark CLIMATE CHANGE Keeping Warm Is Killing Thousands in Mongolia
Some 7,000 people in Mongolia have died this winter due to air pollution, caused by the coal that provides 70% of the nation’s energy and warms most homes.

Raw coal smoke contains carcinogenic particles, and the briquettes introduced by Mongolia’s government can cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

• Citizens regularly suffer from respiratory diseases, liver and lung cancers, asthma, and flu.


• By February, there had been 811 deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning. 

The climate crisis has exacerbated Mongolia’s pollution problem, as extreme winters are killing off animals that have supported nomadic herding families, forcing them into cities. 

There they construct gers: circular tents with central stoves that feed out through a chimney in the roof. More than 50% of Mongolia’s population live in gers; each household burns ~50 pounds of coal daily in winter.

The Guardian GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES TECH & INNOVATION An Extra Coat of Coolness in Cape Town
South Africa’s summer sun can quickly make informal dwellings unbearably hot. The homes—often made of corrugated metal sheets and wood—can reach temperatures of 95°F / 35°C during the day, and barely budge at night. 

The heat takes a heavy toll on the millions of South Africans who live in such settlements, preventing sleep and compounding stress. 

A paint-related program aims to bring relief: Researchers are investigating the effect of painting roofs with reflective, UV-resistant paint—which manufacturers say can dramatically reduce temperatures. 

• The study will track buildings’ internal temperatures, and also potential impacts on inhabitants’ sleep and physiology.

The Telegraph OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS A vaccine expert worries child measles deaths are being 'normalized' – NPR’s All Things Considered 

Starved in jail – The New Yorker

'Parkinson's is a man-made disease' – Politico.eu

Stopping gonorrhoea's descent towards untreatability – The Lancet Infectious Diseases (commentary)

Why 3.5 Billion People Lack Basic Oral Care—and What Needs To Change – Health Policy Watch (podcast)

Young Children’s Exposure to Chemicals of Concern in Their Sleeping Environment: An In-Home Study – Environmental Science & Technology

The Fly That Ruined the World Record (A Metaphor for Chagas Disease) – ISGlobal Barcelona Institute for Global Health Blog

Europe deplores America's 'chlorinated chicken.' How safe is our poultry? – NPR Issue No. 2708
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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96 Global Health NOW: Health Workers Killed as Sudan Marks 2 Years of Civil War; Ghana Grapples With a Deadly Outbreak; and India’s Global Warming Enigma View this email in your browser April 14, 2025 Forward Share Post People who fled the Zamzam for the internally displaced camp after it fell under RSF control commiserate in a makeshift encampment near the town of Tawila, Sudan. April 13. AFP via Getty Health Workers Killed as Sudan Marks 2 Years of Civil War
The last medical clinic in Sudan’s famine-gripped Zamzam camp in Darfur came under fire this weekend, with Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries killing the entire clinical staff, reports The New York Times (gift link). 

• Nine clinic employees were killed in the attacks, per Relief International, which runs the facility. 


• The broader assault has killed 100+ people, including ~20 children at the camp, home to ~500,000. 

“Death is everywhere,” a camp resident told the BBC. “People are wounded, and there is no medicine or hospital to save them.”

Even before the attacks, conditions at Zamzam camp were “catastrophic,” the UN’s Sudan humanitarian coordinator told UN News. 

The attacks come at the two-year mark of Sudan’s conflict, which has led to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and “suffering of industrial proportions,” per UN officials.

• ~150,000 Sudanese have been killed, and ~13 million have been displaced. There have been 156 confirmed attacks on health, per the WHO.


• ~25 million people now face extreme hunger. And sexual violence is pervasive, reports the AP.

And aid efforts continue to be stymied by both “systematic obstruction” by the warring armies and deep funding cuts, per The New Humanitarian. 

Related: 

Children of war: six orphans’ 1,000-mile journey across Sudan in search of safety – The Guardian

Sudanese Refugees’ Lives at Risk as UNHCR Suspends Medical Help – Egyptian Streets

Sudan needs $2.2 bln for first year of health sector rehab, minister says – Sudan Tribune GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   3 million+ children worldwide died from antimicrobial resistance-related infections in 2022, per new research presented at ESCMID Global 2025 in Vienna; deaths were highest in Southeast Asia and Africa. Clinton Health Access Initiative

New mpox cases are averaging ~3,000 per week in African countries, with Uganda accounting for 50% of those in the past week; the region has received 1 million+ vaccine doses but needs 6.4 million doses over the next six months to slow the virus’s spread. CIDRAP

More than a dozen cases of invasive meningococcal disease, a life-threatening bacterial infection caused by Neisseria meningitidis, have been linked to religious pilgrimages to Mecca in Saudi Arabia amid declining compliance with vaccination requirements over the past two years. WHO

Whooping cough cases have surged 1,500%+ in the U.S. since hitting a low in 2021; there were 10 pertussis-related deaths last year, compared with two to four in previous years. ProPublica Health, Foreign Aid, and Science Cuts USDA’s $1B bird flu plan uses money intended for schools, food banks – Politico

NOAA Scientists Are Cleaning Bathrooms and Reconsidering Lab Experiments After Contracts for Basic Services Expire – ProPublica

Dozens of USAID contracts were canceled last weekend. Here's what happened – NPR Goats and Soda

Why CDC cuts are being called ‘the greatest gift to tobacco industry in the last half-century’ – STAT

After Trump grant cuts, some universities give researchers a lifeline – Science

OCHA, the UN’s emergency aid coordination arm, to cut staff by a fifth – The New Humanitarian

Fearing paper on evolution might get them deported, scientists withdrew it – The Washington Post (gift link)

Hopkins trailblazer scrambles to protect cancer research as Trump cuts hit home – The Baltimore Banner MENINGITIS Ghana Grapples With a Deadly Outbreak
A lethal meningitis outbreak is escalating in Ghana’s Upper West region, upending an already strained health system.

A closer look: 

• The region has reported 200+ cases and ~17 deaths. 


• Ghana is in Africa’s “meningitis belt”—a stretch of 26 countries where dry seasonal winds allow further bacterial spread.

Already overwhelmed: The outbreak comes as Ghana’s health system struggles with understaffed hospitals, supply shortages, and slashed USAID funding.

• Ghana faces a $156 million funding shortfall due to the aid freeze—a major setback to the country’s health programs.


• There is no vaccine for the rare Streptococcus strain causing the outbreak, and officials say economic turmoil means that hopes for developing one have dimmed. 

Pulitzer Center / The World  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CLIMATE India’s Global Warming Enigma
As India increasingly grapples with punishing heat waves, scientists are puzzling over a strange phenomenon: The country is warming more slowly than many others—amounting to half the global average over the last decade. 

Why? Scientists aren’t sure. But theories include: 

• The shroud of air pollution: India’s air pollution may be reflecting solar radiation, which could help with cooling. 


• Shifting winds: Warming over the Middle East has pulled monsoon winds northward, leading to an increase in extreme rains—and, potentially, cooling. 


• Impact of irrigation: The expansion of irrigation in northern India could also be a factor; as water evaporates, it absorbs heat from the air, reducing warming. 

Scientists say understanding the trend will allow more accurate forecasts and help the country better prepare for future warming.

Science

Related: India races to beat the smog with an electric mobility revolution in Kashmir – The Telegraph OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Somalia: Frontline hospitals under pressure as fighting escalates – ICRC (news release)

Measles outbreaks spark concern over rare 'horrific' neurological disorder – CBC

Africa's Plan to Fill Health Funding Gaps Amidst Declining Coffers – Africa CDC

Tuberculosis could end if there’s more US public health funding, experts say – The Guardian

Educate to Empower: Protecting Reproductive Rights in Texas – O’Neill Institute / Georgetown Law (commentary)

CDC denies Milwaukee's request for help with unsafe lead levels in public schools – CNN

Recent hospital violence fuels effort to create workplace protections – Axios

Dogs could help predict valley fever spread in humans – University of California, Davis via ScienceDaily Issue No. 2707
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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96 Global Health NOW: RFK’s Muddled Messaging; Burmese Doctors Face Relentless Devastation; and Upper-Class Clown RFK encourages MMR vaccination, but continues to qualify the endorsement. View this email in your browser April 10, 2025 Forward Share Post One year-old River Jacobs is held by his mother while he receives an MMR vaccine at a vaccine clinic in Lubbock, Texas, on March 1. Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images RFK’s Muddled Messaging
As the U.S. measles outbreak continues to widen, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s messaging on the crisis has been unpredictable, reports The Guardian. 

Vacillating on vaccination: One one hand, Kennedy has encouraged MMR vaccination during his most recent tour through the Southwest, which included attending the funeral of an 8-year-old girl who died of measles. 

• But he continues to qualify the endorsement, questioning safety studies and government mandates in his first sit-down TV interview, and continuing to promote unproven alternative therapies, reports The New York Times (gift link). 

Equivocating on severity: While Kennedy is promising to deploy more CDC staff to the outbreak, which has sickened 600+ people in the U.S. and killed three, he continues to downplay its threat—calling the U.S. response a global “model,” reports ABC News.

• Misleading comparison: Kennedy contrasted U.S. numbers to those in the WHO’s European region, which has reported 127,000 cases and 37 deaths. But those numbers are not comparable, global health experts say, because of the large number of countries included in the European region and the wide disparities among them. 

• And health officials continue to caution that the U.S. numbers of actual cases are likely to be greatly undercounted.

Toll of confusion: Doctors and disease experts say Kennedy’s mixed messaging is undermining a cohesive response, reports Reuters. 

• “Our work is becoming harder by the minute,” said Rana Alissa, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Florida chapter.

Related:

National public health group calls for RFK Jr. to resign, citing ‘complete disregard for science’ – STAT

New measles dashboard allows public to track vaccination rates in Illinois schools – ABC 7 Chicago GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
In a genetics milestone, scientists have sequenced the complete genomes of six ape species, with the research, published in Nature, providing key new insights into human evolution, health, and genetic disease. Penn State (news release)

Long COVID affected ~1 in 7 working-age adults in the U.S. by late 2023, with socioeconomically disadvantaged adults 150%+ more likely to have ongoing symptoms, finds two new studies—one study published in Communications Medicine, and another published in BMC Medicine. CIDRAP

An at-home spit test for prostate cancer could outperform current testing methods for assessing prostate cancer risk—a breakthrough that could improve early detection, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests. The Independent

Additional NIH funding for Columbia University has been frozen by the Trump administration, which cut off $250 million for research grants in addition to $400 million frozen last month. Inside Higher Ed CONFLICT Burmese Doctors Face Relentless Devastation 
Amid Burma’s ongoing civil war, health care providers have become increasingly vilified as enemies of the state, as they defy junta orders to treat people wounded in the resistance.

• The junta has closed ~7 private hospitals in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city. 

Now, as Mandalay reels from the March 28 earthquake that killed ~3,500 people, health workers describe harrowing conditions and scant resources.

Ongoing health threats: Doctors say survivors now face threats of disease and a lack of food, water, and shelter. They also blame the junta for delays and restrictions of aid distribution. 

• “The junta cares more about shutting down hospitals and blocking doctors than saving lives after the earthquake,” said one physician, Dr. Min—who lost four colleagues in the earthquake. 

The New York Times (gift link) 

Related: Earthquake Pushes Myanmar's Health System to Verge of Collapse – Think Global Health GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES A Gutting End to ‘The Greatest Thing You’ve Never Heard Of’
USAID’s program to combat neglected tropical diseases through drug distribution has always been a relatively small effort—requiring a fraction of the agency’s budget.

But the effort had a massive impact: Treatments for diseases like trachoma and intestinal worms have been delivered to 1.7 billion people across 31 countries, and at least one NTD has been eliminated in almost half of those countries.

• “For such a little amount, we’ve been able to reach so many people,” said Angela Weaver, at Helen Keller Intl—who called the USAID drug distribution program “the greatest thing you’ve never heard of.”

Now, USAID cuts mean programs are ending, and their future progress is imperiled. 

• Across Africa, tens of thousands of NTD-related community health worker positions have been cut, and pharmaceutical companies that previously donated drugs are hesitating to ship them.

The Guardian

Related: Silent Killers: Neglected Tropical Diseases in South Sudan – The Borgen Project (commentary) ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Upper-Class Clown  
He may be divisive as a political figure, but Boris Johnson will forever be our Prime Minister of Comedy.
 
Most recently, while on vacation in Texas, BoJo was nipped in the face by a feisty ostrich while his toddler giggled hysterically, the Independent reports.
 
Far from his best bungled photo op, this was merely a helpful reminder of all his other gaffes. Some of our faves:

• The time he struggled to glove up at a Welsh vaccination center. “Like OJ Simpson!” he exclaimed. “Absolutely,” his minder agreed, seeming to have no other choice.  

• When he not only rode a zip line holding two Union Jacks, but got stuck mid-zip. 

• Or when he wrestled with an umbrella at a drizzly memorial service. Even King Charles (then merely a Prince) had a chuckle.

• When he ducked an interview by hiding inside an industrial fridge at a dairy farm. “Right heʼs been taken inside … into the freezer,” a reporter explained. Chilly reception indeed!

QUICK HITS Heavy drinking linked with lasting impact on the brain, study finds – CNN 

USAID enabled 208 Afghan women to defy the Taliban ban on college — until now – NPR Goats and Soda

Preventable ‘meningitis belt’ deaths targeted in health agency action plan – UN News

New reports suggest diabetes weight loss drugs could reduce Alzheimer's risk – Medical Xpress

Ukraine: Stark increase in civilian casualties in March, UN Human Rights Monitors say – OHCHR

Road deaths fell below 40,000 in 2024, the lowest since 2019 – Ars Technica

A biotech company says it has bred three pups with traits of the extinct dire wolf – NPR Issue No. 2706
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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96 Global Health NOW: Breakthrough Clues in an Mpox Mystery; Afghanistan’s Escort Rules Fuel Maternal Deaths; and San Francisco Rethinks Harm Reduction View this email in your browser April 9, 2025 Forward Share Post A fire-footed rope squirrel (Funisciurus pyrropus) in southern Mali, in 2010. Laurent Granjon/Jean-Marc Duplantier via iNaturalist Breakthrough Clues in an Mpox Mystery 
Researchers have been trying to unravel one of the “great mysteries” of mpox: What are its animal reservoir hosts?

Now, a team of scientists say they have landed on a key culprit: a squirrel. And their preprint research could have significant implications for tracking and preventing future spillovers, reports Nature. 

Background: The name “monkeypox” comes from the 1958 discovery of the virus in lab monkeys. But researchers have long suspected small mammals of being sources for cross-species spillover.

Surveillance sleuthing: The latest discovery started with an mpox outbreak in sooty mangabey monkeys in Taï National Park in Côte d’Ivoire, reports Science.

• Scientists then located the identical virus in a sample from a fire-footed rope squirrel found dead three months before the outbreak started. 


• Researchers pinpointed the squirrel DNA in fecal samples from the mangabeys, suggesting the monkeys became infected after eating the squirrels. 

Implications: “This study is a landmark contribution to understanding mpox dynamics and guiding proactive prevention efforts across Africa and beyond,” said Yap Boum, a biologist at the Africa CDC.

More work needed: More evidence is needed to determine whether the squirrels can carry and shed the virus long-term without getting sick—a key feature of a reservoir host, scientists say. 

Related: 

Fears new mpox strain spreading in UK after case with no travel history – The Telegraph 

China’s first monkeypox vaccine enters phase I clinical trials, planning to recruit volunteers – Global Times GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Cholera cases in Kenya have risen to nearly 100, with six reported fatalities, per the nation’s health ministry, which is redoubling its surveillance efforts. The Nation

Teen gun license applicants in Canada spiked 11% between 2023 and 2024—raising concerns that as teens reach voting age, there will be greater calls for loosening gun restrictions. CBC

Floods in Queensland have led to 10 new infections of melioidosis, a soil-borne bacterial disease that has killed 26 people in the Australian state this year; more infections are expected, health experts say. ABC Australia

Invasive Streptococcus A infections more than doubled in the U.S. between 2013 and 2022, per a surveillance study of 10 states published in JAMA that linked the rise to “increasing prevalence of underlying health conditions,” and found growing levels of antibiotic resistance. CIDRAP U.S. Policy News NSF slashes prestigious PhD fellowship awards by half – Nature

Trump has blown a massive hole in global health funding—and no one can fill it – Science

Dr. Oz Pushed for AI Health Care in First Medicare Agency Town Hall – Wired

What do Americans think of Trump's foreign policies? – BBC

It's sexual assault awareness month and HHS just gutted its rape prevention unit – NPR

Trump administration says it cut funding to some life-saving UN food programs by mistake – AP

A closer look at the nationwide impact of NIH cuts – Axios MATERNAL MORTALITY Escort Rules Lead to Maternal Deaths 
Under the Taliban in Afghanistan, women and girls are prevented from accessing medical care without a male escort, leading to rising mortality rates for women and infants.

• Before the Taliban took power, maternal mortality was already 3X higher than the world average.


• By 2026, a woman’s estimated risk of death during childbirth will rise by 50%.


• Every day, 24 mothers and 167 infants die in Afghanistan. 

Barriers: In December 2024, the Taliban also stopped medical training for women. Poor access to health care, a shortage of doctors and midwives, and rising rates of early marriage also contribute to increased risks.

The Guardian 

Related: USAID enabled 208 Afghan women to defy the Taliban ban on college — until now – NPR Goats and Soda GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES HARM REDUCTION A Policy Shift in San Francisco
San Francisco has long prioritized harm reduction in its drug policies, such as with programs to distribute on the streets free, clean paraphernalia for fentanyl smoking, no questions asked.

But the city’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, says the city’s policies have become too permissive and will scale them back in an effort to steer more people into treatment.

• “We are no longer going to sit by and allow people to kill themselves on the streets,” said Lurie. 

New rules starting April 30:

• Paraphernalia can be distributed only to people who undergo lengthy counseling sessions.


• Nonprofits will be able to distribute smoking supplies only in city-sanctioned buildings. 

Clean needles can still be provided on the street, and naloxone distribution will not be affected. 

The New York Times (gift link) QUICK HITS Ontario's measles outbreak is so big, even New York health officials are taking notice – CBC

Man whose blood helped develop measles vaccine weighs in on recent outbreak – PBS NewsHour (video)

State lawmakers are weighing bills that would treat abortion as homicide ​​– The 19th

Achieving gender justice for global health equity: the Lancet Commission on gender and global health – The Lancet

Menopause makes it on the policy map – Axios

Improving the Global Health Workforce Is a Bipartisan Imperative – Newsweek (commentary)

How the Alcohol Industry Steers Governments Away From Effective Strategies to Curb Drink Driving – Vital Strategies 

A new BEACON for global health set to launch in Boston – The Daily Free Press

Meet Siku, the itchy polar bear: How allergies are affecting animals – BBC Thanks for the tip, Xiaodong Cai! Issue No. 2705
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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96 Global Health NOW: High Costs for Kids of PEPFAR’s Demise; China’s Older HIV Population; and South Africa’s Struggle to Protect Women View this email in your browser April 8, 2025 Forward Share Post Sister Sally Naidoo administers an HIV test on a young boy at the Right To Care AIDS clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa, on January 27, 2012. Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty High Costs for Kids of PEPFAR’s Demise  
If PEPFAR programs do not continue, an additional 1 million children will become infected with HIV, 500,000 additional children will die of AIDS, and another 2.8 million children will become orphans because of AIDS by 2030, according to models in a Lancet study published today.
 
The authors, from African countries and elsewhere, argue for a five-year transition to country-led sustainability, noting that PEPFAR-supported countries had already increased their share of support from $13.7 billion per year in 2004 to $42.6 billion in 2021.
 
Benefits of the successful transition of PEPFAR programs include better health security for both African countries and the U.S. by:

• Cutting forced migration.


• Boosting control of emerging infectious disease threats.

Currently: AIDS is estimated to kill one child under 15 every 7 minutes.

Bleak future: As part of the reorganization of HHS in the U.S., CDC officials responsible for the care of 500,000+ children and 600,000+ pregnant women with HIV in low-income countries have been fired or reassigned, The New York Times reports (gift link).

• Their programs sought to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and to deliver treatment for children living with HIV.


• The officials had been helping direct medications to areas where stocks were running low.

Related: 
 
UCLA professor loses millions in funding for HIV research project – ABC7 / Los Angeles
 
Is This the End of Progress on H.I.V.? – The New York Times (commentary)
 
The global fight against HIV/AIDS, in chaos – The Washington Post (podcast) GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   U.S. health secretary RFK Jr. called for an end to adding fluoride to public drinking water supplies, saying "It makes no sense to have it in our water supply,” and praising Utah’s plans for a ban; the EPA has now launched a new review of fluoride's health effects. CBS 
 
Health systems implementing the “Zero Suicide Model” saw a fall in suicides and attempts, per a study published in JAMA Network Open; the model, developed by Detroit-based Henry Ford Health, emphasizes patient screening, safety planning, and mental health counseling. AP
 
Children born to mothers with diabetes in pregnancy showed a 28% higher risk of having any neurodevelopmental disorder compared to children born to mothers without the condition, according to a large meta-analysis in The Lancet led by Chinese researchers who cautioned that while more research is needed, diligent monitoring of blood sugar levels in pregnancy is merited. The Independent
 
A newly developed blood test for Alzheimer’s disease can help diagnose the condition with up to 83% accuracy—and indicate how far it has progressed—years before symptoms begin, according to a study in Nature Medicine led by Swedish researchers. Medical Xpress U.S. Policy News How will the deep cuts at the Centers for Disease Control affect global programs? – NPR Goats and Soda

Long COVID activists fought Trump team’s research cuts and won ― for now – Nature

Trump Said Cuts Wouldn’t Affect Public Safety. Then He Fired Hundreds of Workers Who Help Fight Wildfires. – ProPublica

Transfer to Alaska? Offer to health leaders called 'insult' to Indian Health Service – NPR Shots EDUCATION Johns Hopkins Tops Rankings of U.S. Public Health Schools 

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health again ranks #1 among public health schools and programs in the U.S., based on peer-assessment ratings released this morning by U.S. News & World Report.  
 
This year’s top 10 schools: 
 
1. Johns Hopkins University 
2. Emory University 
2. Harvard University  
2. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor 
2. University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill 
6. Columbia University 
7. Boston University 
8. University of California - Berkeley 
8. University of California - Los Angeles 
10. Tulane University 
 
This year’s rankings include 219 schools and programs of public health accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health. 
  
U.S. News & World Report 

VIOLENCE South Africa’s Struggle to Protect Women
Over three decades, South Africa has seen significant progress in curbing femicide and violence against women.

• Between 1999 and 2017, the intimate partner femicide rate fell from 9.5 per 100,000 women in 1999 to 4.9, with researchers pointing to women’s economic empowerment and a groundswell of vocal anti-violence advocacy contributing to the shift. 

But rates remain the highest reported in the world, and a recent uptick of violence has been described as a “national crisis” by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

• Femicide has increased 30%+ since 2021. 


• Last year, 36% of South African women reported experiencing physical or sexual violence at some time.

Reasons include pervasive misogynist beliefs among men, a failure to enforce gun policy, and a lack of judicial accountability, advocates say. 

The Telegraph RESOURCES How to Introduce Kids to Health Policy
Policy Wisdom’s collection of Athena’s Adventures in Health Policy—all 15 books—is now available online for free.
 
The series aims to inspire the next generation of public health professionals and show them the importance and impact of health policies. These engaging books bring health policy to life, making complex topics accessible and thought-provoking for young readers.
 
Download the complete collection now—for free! 
 
Prefer a printed copy? The books are also available to purchase on Amazon. $1 from the sale of each book is donated to Global Health NOW. HIV/AIDS China’s Older HIV Population
In China, a growing number of studies are signaling an impending health crisis: Older people are quickly becoming a high-risk group for HIV infection.

• Some studies have predicted that by 2035, nearly 33% of HIV-positive people in China will be aged 60+. 

Risk factors: 

• Because HIV prevention and testing campaigns are focused on young people, older patients usually don’t find out they’re HIV positive until the disease is “very advanced,” said Chinese AIDS expert Wan Yanhai. 


• A growing number of older men across China are engaging in commercial sex, research shows. 


• Little is being done to address seniors’ sexual health, with surveys revealing a pervasive cultural assumption that seniors have little if any sex—a belief that does not bear out in research. 

Radio Free Asia OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Ukraine: Mine contamination is lethal legacy of Russia’s invasion – UN News

Scientists identify Nigeria hotspots where malaria, STH overlap, indicating high co-morbidity – DownToEarth

Court tosses Biden nursing home staffing standard – Axios

In Final Days of Pandemic Talks, Countries Urged to Budget for ‘Both Bombs and Bugs’ – Health Policy Watch

From the hospital to the lab: How we reported the snakebite scandal – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Transparency in government is good for global health – The Current /UC Santa Barbara 

Public Health in the Age of AI and Climate Change – Department of Medicine News / Stanford University

AI for research: the ultimate guide to choosing the right tool – Nature Issue No. 2704
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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96 Global Health NOW: A Crossroads for Maternal Mortality; March Recap; and Insurance Executives Pull Back the Curtain View this email in your browser April 7, 2025 Forward Share Post A health worker performs an ultrasound on a pregnant woman at a health center in the Ramechhap district, east of Kathmandu, Nepal, on June 8, 2018. Bikram Rai/AFP via Getty A Crossroads for Maternal Mortality
More women face risk of death in pregnancy and childbirth, as drastic U.S. aid cuts threaten hard-won gains in maternal survival, and could have “pandemic-like effects” on maternal services worldwide, the WHO is warning, per The Guardian.

“Fragile” progress: Deaths due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth declined 40% globally between 2000 and 2023, but gains have slowed since 2016, per the WHO. And rates are off track to meet 2030 maternal survival targets. 

• ~260,000 women died in 2023 from pregnancy-related causes, a new UN report has found—a reality that one WHO official described as a “real travesty of justice.” 


• Most vulnerable: Pregnant women in conflict zones, who already face a 5X greater risk of death than elsewhere. 


• Poor countries reported a maternal mortality rate nearly 35X the rate in rich countries.

“Increasing headwinds”: U.S. funding cuts have quickly led to shuttered clinics, reductions in health workers, and disrupted supplies of critical medications for conditions like preeclampsia and hemorrhage.

Pandemic preview: Maternal deaths rose by 40,000 in 2021 due to pandemic-related disruptions, new data in the report show. 

• This year’s funding cuts could cause a similar “acute shock to the system”—especially as countries didn’t have time to prepare for the cuts. 

Related: 

World Health Day: Focusing on women’s physical and mental health around the world – UN News

Trump administration eviscerates maternal and child health programs – The Guardian GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES More Measles News RFK: MMR vaccine is the "most effective way" to prevent measles spread – Axios

RFK Jr. visits epicenter of Texas measles outbreak after death of second child who was infected – AP

U.S. may be reverting to a time when measles deaths were not very rare, experts warn – STAT

As measles spreads, some doctors are seeing the virus for the first time – The New York Times The Latest One-Liners   The NIH may not cap funding for indirect costs associated with its grants at 15%, a U.S. federal judge ruled Friday, making permanent a temporary order issued in February; the Trump administration had asked for this verdict so it could move forward with an appeal. The New York Times (gift link)

350,000+ U.S. health workers face a risk of deportation in the country’s immigration crackdown, per new research published in JAMA, which found that ensuing worker shortages could affect hospitals and other clinical settings. MedPage Today

Mobile health care units providing ART and PrEP medications reduced the risk for death by ~70% among people who inject drugs, per a study presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Healio

Unsanitary practices continue at Abbott Laboratories, one of the largest baby formula factories in the U.S., workers report; the factory’s 2022 shutdown led to severe formula shortages, and now oversight is in question due to mass FDA layoffs. ProPublica MARCH MUST-READS Moving Beyond Stigma in Mexico
For years, Mexico has taken a “prohibitionist, hardline approach” to drug use, reinforcing a stigma that ties drug use to other criminal activities. But recently, health advocates have been taking a different tack—toward harm reduction. 

• One example: Checa tu Sustanciae (Check Your Substance) provides a way for people at events like music festivals to test drugs for fentanyl and other adulterants, and also equips those people with naloxone and practical information. 

AP
Interrupted Agent Orange Cleanup
USAID cuts abruptly halted efforts to clean up an enormous chemical spill at Vietnam’s Bien Hoa air base—leaving pits with dioxin-contaminated soil exposed at the cusp of the country’s rainy season and putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of poisoning. 

• A $430 million+ U.S. government remediation effort had begun in 2019 to clean up widespread dioxin contamination that dates back to the Vietnam War—when the U.S. brought the toxin to the country.

 ProPublica  
The Bureaucrat Bridging Gaps
Consider this maddening prospect: A 5-year-old girl in Texas is diagnosed with a rare, brain-eating amoeba, but her doctors haven’t heard about an effective antibiotic remedy discovered by California researchers—a tragic disconnect that all too frequently leads to preventable suffering and death. 

• Michael Lewis examines the mission of an FDA worker “buried under six layers on an agency organizational chart” who is seeking to solve the problem by creating a database for rare diseases and treatments, called CURE ID. A big question: Will anyone use it? 

The Washington Post (gift link)  MARCH EXCLUSIVES Adolescents in a classroom raising their hands, photographed from behind. Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Creative What Do American Kids Learn About Sex? It Depends Who You Ask.  
Over 90% of U.S. parents and guardians support their children receiving comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in school—but there is no national requirement, and only 38% of all high schools and 14% of middle schools in the U.S. cover all of the CDCʼs priority sexual health topics, including condom use and STD prevention.
 
Compare that to the Netherlands, where sex ed is mandated in primary through lower secondary schools. And, at 2.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15–19, the Netherlandsʼ teen birth rate is the lowest in the EU—and far lower than the U.S. teen birth rate of 13.2 births per 1,000.
 
“Chilling effect”: While there haven't been direct attacks on U.S. sex education, policy recommendations targeting DEI, gender identity, and restroom access for trans people raise concerns about the funding future for CSE providers—but advocates remain determined to broaden access to CSE.
 
Annalies Winny, Global Health NOW
March Commentaries:

• It’s Time for PEPFAR to Embrace Reform – Jirair Ratevosian


• How to Keep Doing Global Health: Tips From the Global South – Siddhesh Zadey and Dhananjaya Sharma

Revisiting Extraordinary Journeys
If you werenʼt able to join GHN in March for Extraordinary Journeys: Stories of Refugees Fleeing Conflict and Shaping Global Health, you can now view recordings of each story from this special event, co-hosted by GHN and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, spotlighting the remarkable experiences of public health practitioners from Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria with lived experience as refugees. WATCH HERE MARCH'S BEST NEWS Lifesaving Ultrasounds 
New ultrasound technology is reshaping prenatal care in sub-Saharan Africa, allowing improved access to the critical scan at hundreds of health facilities.

• Portable point-of-care ultrasound devices are designed specifically for providers in low-resource areas who may not have access to radiology equipment.

Instant impact: In 2022, 500 such devices were deployed to providers across Kenya—and a Kenyatta University follow-up study found that within one month of training, 90% of health care workers used the machines to identify high-risk conditions such as placenta previa or multiple gestations. 

MedCity News  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES HEALTH POLICY Insurance Executives Pull Back the Curtain  
Amid sharper public criticism of the U.S. health insurance system, former industry executives turned whistleblowers are speaking out about unethical practices they say are baked into the for-profit system. 

Some of the industry tenets they described: 

Patients are the lowest priority, as their needs are “fundamentally at odds” with Wall Street demands and financial incentives. 

“Execute a few hostages” mentality: One executive described decisions to arbitrarily terminate doctors out of network without cause “to show them who’s boss.” 

Champagne during COVID-19: Another executive described how his company had champagne delivered to leaders’ homes during the lockdown to celebrate financial gains accrued while people were forced to forgo elective care. 

Intelligencer OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Mexico confirms country's first human case of bird flu in a 3-year-old girl – Medical Xpress

'I could live 30 years but plan to die': How assisted dying law is dividing Canadians – BBC

Major endometriosis study reveals impact of gluten, coffee, dairy and alcohol – The Guardian

In banning ‘Glock switches,’ red and blue states find common ground on gun law – The Washington Post (gift link)

Understanding the resurgence of mpox: key drivers and lessons from recent outbreaks in Africa – Tropical Medicine and Health / BioMed Central

Tariffs hit science labs: Trump levies raise cost of supplies – Nature

Behind the Plate: Keeping Our Food Safe – Contagious Conversations (CDC Foundation podcast)

An antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission – University of Pennsylvania via ScienceDaily Issue No. 2703
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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96 Global Health NOW: Taking Cuts to Court; Beijing+30: A New Generation Needed to Advance Women’s Rights; and Minding the Lexical Gap View this email in your browser April 3, 2025 Forward Share Post Demonstrators protest funding cuts outside of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, on March 8. Michael Mathes/AFP via Getty Taking Cuts to Court 
The Trump administration is facing a new wave of litigation from scientists, unions, and health advocacy groups, alleging that the administration’s cuts to research are illegal—and that the “ideological purge” behind them poses an existential threat to American scientific enterprise, reports the AP. 

Details: The latest lawsuit filed by the ACLU argues that NIH grant cuts were not guided by federal funding rules, which include a science-based review process designed to insulate the grant process from politicization. Such cuts have been “extremely rare” in previous administrations. 

• “To have it undermined in this way is really to give ourselves a black eye as a country,” said plaintiff Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, per CNN.


• The suit also argues that ending projects midstream could put patients undergoing NIH-funded treatment at risk, and waste taxpayer money. 

Meanwhile, the reckoning over widespread cuts to federal health offices is ongoing:

• The Trump administration is demanding the CDC—which has laid off one-fifth of its workforce—to now cut $2.9 billion of contract spending, per The New York Times (gift link)—a move one CDC scientist described as “cutting off our arms and legs.”

Related: 

Trump’s cruel calculus on public health is slashing lifelines for the most vulnerable – Salon (commentary)

C.D.C. Cuts Threaten to Set Back the Nation’s Health, Critics Say – The New York Times (gift link)

The USAID List of Terminated Global Health Awards – What Does it Tell Us? – KFF Global Health Policy

Doctor Behind Award-Winning Parkinson’s Research Among Scientists Purged From NIH – WIRED

Slashing the public health workforce hurts the U.S. economy – The Washington Post (commentary and gift link) GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   More than half of the world’s pediatric cancer deaths occur in war-torn countries, which St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Duke researchers tied to disruptions in diagnosis and treatment in a new study in The Lancet Oncology that analyzed three decades of data. Duke Global Health Institute

A two-year-old girl in Andhra Pradesh, India, died after contracting H5N1, marking India’s first death from the virus since 2021; the child, whose family members all tested negative for the virus, may have been infected by consuming raw chicken. Times of India

The latest COVID variant on the rise is LP.8.1, an offshoot of Omicron that features genetic changes allowing it to spread more easily; it is swiftly becoming dominant in the U.K. The Independent

The shingles vaccine is linked to reduced dementia risk, finds a study in Nature that analyzed health records of 280,000+ older adults in Wales; those who received the shingles vaccine were 20% less likely to develop dementia over the next seven years than those who did not receive the vaccine. CBC GHN EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY A Marie Stopes International mobile clinical outreach team on a site visit to Laniar health center in Senegal. August 14, 2014. Jonathan Torgovnik for The Hewlett Foundation/Reportage by Getty Beijing+30: A New Generation Needed to Advance Women’s Rights
Despite notable advances in women’s rights in the last 30 years since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action, gender-based violence, maternal mortality, and other issues still need to be addressed, writes Consolata Chikoti, a lawyer and global health scholar from Tanzania.
 
Successes include:

• A +30% reduction in maternal mortality.


• 162 countries have criminalized gender-based violence (GBV).


• A significant increase in access to modern family planning methods.

But:

• 800 women lose their lives every day to preventable maternal causes.


• GBV continues to be a critical concern, with one in three women having experienced physical or sexual violence, often by an intimate partner. 

Chikoti calls for a “commitment to mentoring and empowering young women to [foster] a new generation of leaders who will continue to challenge systemic barriers and drive transformative change for all women.” READ CONSOLATA CHIKOTI’S FULL COMMENTARY REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH India’s Push to End Cervical Cancer
Tens of thousands of doctors across India are being trained to promote the HPV vaccine, in an effort to eliminate cervical cancer in the country.

• One in five cervical cancer cases worldwide occur in India—nearly all of which are caused by HPV.

Health care providers will encourage mothers attending medical appointments to vaccinate their children, and will visit schools and community centers to counter vaccine disinformation.

• HPV vaccination has been privately available in India since 2008, but uptake has been low: Until recently, imported vaccines were expensive and misinformation surrounding deaths during an HPV vaccine trial left citizens distrustful.


• India recently started manufacturing its own HPV vaccine, with plans to make it part of the national vaccination program by early 2026.

The Guardian GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES OPPORTUNITY Atlantic Fellows: One Week Left to Apply!
George Washington University’s Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity program is a one-year, non-residential program that allows early- to mid-career professionals to develop their leadership skills and build their capacity through support for a health equity project to be completed at a fellow’s professional organization.

Fellows benefit from in-person and virtual training opportunities, coaching and mentoring from health equity experts, and integration into a lifelong senior fellowship network.

• Deadline: April 10, 2025
• Learn more and apply  

ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Minding the Lexical Gap  
It can easily take a dozen English words—and frantic gesturing of clenched hands and gritted teeth—to describe the sensation of “cute aggression” toward, say, an adorable kitten.
 
Tagalog has it boiled down to one word: gigil (ghee-gill). Itʼs among dozens of non-English words now inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary, helping to fill a “lexical gap” with untranslatable words found in one language but not others, per BBC.
 
Lost for words no more! Thanks to the new additions, one neednʼt clutch at verbal straws trying to evoke the joy of drinking a beer outside (utepils, thanks Norway!), or seeing sunlight dappling through leaves (komorebi, h/t Japan).
 
In-kind donation: As a gesture of thanks, might we offer up some choice English words in exchange? Surely acersecomicke—“one whose hair was never cut”—deserves broader use. Or what about flingee, a handy term to describe “one at whom anything is flung”—be it a snowball, or a barrage of new words. QUICK HITS They were forced to scam others worldwide. Now thousands are detained on the Myanmar border – AP 

Africa's Quiet Response to U.S. Realignment of Foreign Aid – Think Global Health (commentary)

Farm workers avoiding bird flu testing because of deportation threat, officials fear – The Telegraph

World is ‘failing’ people with disabilities: UN deputy chief – UN News

Two infants die of whooping cough in Louisiana as cases climb nationally – CNN

Supreme Court rules in favor of FDA in dispute over flavored vapes – The Hill

Do smartphones and social media really harm teens’ mental health? – Nature

Why we study shrimp on treadmills: The case for curiosity-driven research – STAT (commentary) Issue No. 2702
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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96 Global Health NOW: Deep, ‘Degrading’ Cuts to U.S. Health Offices; Sierra Leone Weighs Abortion Bill; and Zambia’s ‘Most Contaminated Site’ View this email in your browser April 2, 2025 Forward Share Post Employees of the Department of Health and Human Services stand in line to enter the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building yesterday in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Deep, ‘Degrading’ Cuts to U.S. Health Offices 
Mass layoffs are underway in America’s federal health offices, with thousands of positions cut yesterday in a chaotic process described by one FDA employee as a “bloodbath,” reports CNN. 

Included in the layoffs were thousands of scientists, doctors, senior leaders, and support staff—including entire teams that track disease outbreaks, conduct medical research, work to reduce injuries, monitor food and medicine safety, and administer health insurance programs for nearly half of the U.S. population, reports STAT. 

Scope of the cuts, per the AP:

• The CDC will eliminate ~ 2,400 workers, slashing divisions focused on workplace safety, violence and injury prevention, drug use, and asthma. 


• The FDA is set to lose ~3,500 staffers, including those who set policy for tobacco products and who review new drugs.


• The NIH will cut ~1,200 additional employees, including scientists, computer specialists, and nearly the entire communications staff.


• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will lay off ~300 staffers.

“Humiliating and degrading” day: The layoffs were haphazardly administered, with many workers finding out they had been fired when their key cards did not work, per Federal News Network. The elimination of support staff in some cases meant offices could not operate. 

• “This is a sad and inhumane way to treat people,” said former FDA commissioner Robert Califf, who described the agency as “finished.”

Impact: The cuts will “leave our country less safe, less prepared and without the necessary talent and resources to respond to health threats,” said Mandy Cohen, former CDC director. 

Related:

RFK Jr. purges CDC and FDA's public records teams, despite "transparency" promises – CBS 

States sue Trump administration for rescinding billions in health funding –  AP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Middle East and North Africa HIV cases more than doubled over the last decade amid ongoing conflicts, displacement, and high levels of stigma for vulnerable populations, per a new Frontline AIDS report; infections in Jordan, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, and Lebanon soared by 116% since 2010 and are expected to keep rising. The Telegraph

Mpox presents a growing epidemic and pandemic risk, as human interaction with the virus reshapes its “entire endemic range” and as knowledge gaps on its biologic makeup hamper virus control. Nature Medicine (commentary)

A dearth of antifungal treatments is making invasive fungal diseases a greater threat, especially as they become more drug-resistant, per a WHO analysis released yesterday that described “an urgent need for innovative research and development.” Health Policy Watch

Family planning grants have been paused in the U.S., with the federal government withholding $27.5 million from organizations that provide contraception, cancer screenings, and STI services as officials investigate whether they’re complying with laws and executive orders. AP REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH Sierra Leone Weighs Abortion Bill
Sierra Leone could soon decriminalize abortion in some cases pending a parliamentary vote in the coming weeks. If passed, it would make Sierra Leone the second West African country (after Benin) to legalize the procedure.
 
Sierra Leone’s numbers:

• An estimated 90,000 abortions are performed each year.


• Tens of thousands of women and girls attempt to self-terminate pregnancies each year.


• Over 20% of girls ages 15–19 become pregnant.


• Unsafe abortions account for ~10% of the country’s maternal deaths; health workers say that’s likely a vast undercount.

A long battle: Following opposition from religious groups and some government officials, the initial bill has been amended to allow abortion only in cases of rape, incest, life-threatening risk, and fatal fetal abnormalities. 
 
AP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH The Future of Zambia’s ‘Most Contaminated Site’ 
For decades, residents of Kabwe, Zambia, have grown severely sick—especially children. Many have died far too young. 

Hundreds of blood samples from residents over the decades have clearly identified the problem: severe lead poisoning. 

Behind the pollution: From 1906 to 1994, Kabwe was home to one of the world's largest lead and zinc mines. Lead particles infiltrated soil and waterways, and the pervasive dust continues to affect residents. 

• A 2022 U.N. report identified the site as a “sacrifice zone”—one of the most polluted places on the planet. 

Zambia received a World Bank loan to support cleanup efforts—but human rights groups say little has been done and that efforts have not addressed the former mine itself. 

NPR Goats and Soda DEMENTIA Lack of Deep Sleep Increases Alzheimer’s Risk
One in three American adults don’t get enough sleep—and according to a new study, a lack of REM sleep may speed the decline in parts of the brain associated with Alzheimer’s.

• Adults need an average of 7–8 hours of sleep. 


• 20%–25% should be spent in deep sleep and the same amount in REM sleep.

The two deep stages of sleep, slow-wave and REM, are vital to brain function, as toxins and dead cells are cleared and memories and other information are processed and consolidated. Without adequate slow-wave and REM sleep, the inferior parietal region of the brain shrunk, according to the study.

CNN

Related: 

Latest Alzheimer's lab tests focus on memory loss, not brain plaques – NPR Shots

Lowering bad cholesterol may cut risk of dementia by 26%, study suggests – The Guardian

WHO calls for urgent action on dementia among refugees and migrants – WHO

European committee says Lilly Alzheimer’s drug shouldn’t get marketing approval – AP OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Guterres calls for greater equality and inclusion as world marks Autism Awareness Day – UN News

Communities in crisis: The collapse of HIV lifelines in Eastern Europe and Central Asia – UNAIDS

A Prison Death Highlights an L.G.B.T.Q. Crackdown in Russia – The New York Times (gift link)

How Houston's mayor kept Texas prisons hot as 'living hell,' – Chron

Analysis: Tariffs on Canadian drugs will strain US supply chain – CIDRAP

Long COVID Showed Me the Bottom of American Health Care – The Atlantic

The Role of Clinicians in the Climate Crisis – JAMA Network Open (commentary)

How Dating Apps Could Unlock At-Home HIV Testing – Think Global Health (commentary)

The Sound of Science – The Hub / Johns Hopkins Magazine Issue No. 2701
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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96 Global Health NOW: Fast-Spreading Measles and Misinformation; Inside the Plans to Dismantle USAID; and Finding Hope for Fistula Survivors in Nigeria View this email in your browser April 1, 2025 Forward Share Post Priscilla Luna and her 3-year-old daughter Avery read a book about immunizations at a Lubbock Public Health Department vaccine clinic. March 1, Lubbock, Texas. Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Fast-Spreading Measles and Misinformation
Measles continues to spread across under-vaccinated West Texas and is causing outbreaks in four other U.S. states—spreading as quickly as misinformation.

• The Texas outbreak has topped 400 cases and may continue for months. It has also been linked to new cases in Mexico, AP reports.


• The U.S. has had more cases in the first three months of the year than all of last year.

Misinformation:

• HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has recommended vitamin A as treatment, Axios reports. But experts warn that high doses of vitamin A can be dangerous.


• A hospital in Lubbock, Texas, reported last week it was treating 10 children “suffering from complications caused by measles and exacerbated by abnormal liver function caused by elevated levels of Vitamin A,” per Texas Public Radio.

The takeaway: Public health practitioners are having difficulty explaining the benefits of vaccination to some parents, Al Jazeera reports.

• Public health officials “have to get people to understand the … value of getting vaccinated, but battling information warfare is not what we’re taught in public health school,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center.

Don’t Mess with Measles: Measles can be lethal, can cause brain damage, and harm the lungs and immune system, per a commentary in The Conversation.
            
Related:

Colorado measles case reported in Pueblo adult who traveled internationally – Colorado Public Radio
 
Texas Never Wanted RFK Jr.’s Unproven Measles Treatment – The Atlantic GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   A cholera outbreak in Angola has spread to 16 of the country’s 21 provinces so far this year, rising to 329 deaths and 8,500+ cases as of March 25, according to the WHO, with children and young adults particularly hard hit. CIDRAP
 
A deadly antibiotic-resistant superbug bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii, for which there is little research, is spreading in a Malaysian hospital, per a new study that found high resistance to multiple antibiotics, especially carbapenems—the drugs of choice for the treatment of A. baumannii infections. Medical Xpress

A U.S. federal judge ruled that Alabama can’t prosecute people who help to facilitate out-of-state abortions where the procedure is legal, saying it would violate the constitution and the right to travel. The Appeal

Deforestation is a leading indicator of Ebola virus spillover from animals to humans in a new CDC-led study; the model could help identify patterns that could guide prevention efforts. Emerging Infectious Diseases U.S. Health Policy News: The head of Africa CDC thought news of a U.S. aid freeze must be 'a joke.' Now what? – NPR Goats and Soda

‘The lives of individuals in the US are at stake,’ researchers warn after HHS cancels hundreds of vaccine grants – CNN

FDA’s top tobacco official is removed from post in latest blow to health agency’s leadership – AP

Trump wants to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court will hear a case aimed at that. – The 19th

Public health under Trump 2.0: the first 50 days – The Lancet Public Health (commentary)

How the MAHA Commission Can Improve U.S. Life Expectancy – Think Global Health (commentary) FOREIGN AID Inside the Plans to Dismantle USAID
The Trump administration’s plans to break down USAID and shift its surviving operations to the State Department have been outlined in a congressional notification.

The basics: The agency will be abolished “as an independent establishment” for fiscal year 2026, and all staff will be laid off. 

Reordering: Remaining parts of the agency, including food security and global health programs, will be run by the State Department. 

• Programs will be housed within State Department regional bureaus—a move that could make aid programs “more fragmented,” warn international development experts. 


• As the State Department hires staff for its programs, some USAID staff could be rehired, though it is unclear how the agency will respond to crises like the Burma earthquakes while the transition is ongoing. 

Is this legal? Congressional approval is required before the agency is shut down. It is unclear whether the Trump administration will wait for congressional authorization before moving forward.

Devex

Related:

The USAID awards the Trump administration killed — and kept – Devex

A Youth Friendly Drop-In Centre is Staying Committed to HIV Prevention Amidst USAID Funding Cuts in Kenya – Nigeria Health Watch

A midwife says of the aid cuts in Afghanistan: 'No one prioritizes women's lives.' – NPR Goats and Soda GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CLIMATE POLICY The High Impact of Stemming ‘Super Pollutants’
In climate policy, mitigating CO2 emissions is the perennial priority. But scientists say addressing a small group of “super pollutants” could have a swift, meaningful influence on slowing rising temperatures and improving health outcomes. 

• Black carbon, methane, and ozone are responsible for nearly half of global temperature increases to date, and also have wide-ranging impacts on food security and respiratory health.

Rapid results: Reducing these emissions could serve as an “emergency brake” on climate change, say climate scientists, who raised the matter at the WHO Second Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health in Cartagena, Colombia, last week. 

• “If you reduce them today, we’ll see impacts in our lifetimes,” said Claire Henly, executive director of the Super Pollutant Field Catalyst.

Health Policy Watch

Related: Exposure to Air Pollution in Childhood Is Associated with Reduced Brain Connectivity – ISGlobal, The Barcelona Institute for Global Health SURGERY Finding Hope for Fistula Survivors in Nigeria
Free fistula repair surgery will soon be available at clinics throughout Nigeria, health officials announced earlier this month—a “groundbreaking move” in a country where ~12,000 new fistula cases are reported each year. 

Background: Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) is a condition where an opening forms between the bladder and the vagina. Root causes: Prolonged or obstructed labor and female genital mutilation.

• The condition can be debilitating and highly stigmatizing: In 2022, ~626 women with VVF were abandoned by their families in the state of Borno.

More than surgery needed: Advocates say comprehensive counseling services are essential to support VVF survivors amid the psychological trauma associated with the condition. 

Nigeria Health Watch OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS ‘It’s beyond description’: Bodies pile up in mass graves as Myanmar grapples with quake toll – The Guardian

Gas fire in Malaysia injures more than 100 people and damages 49 houses – AP via ABC

An RSF atrocity, a mass evacuation, and another side to mutual aid in Sudan – The New Humanitarian

Epilepsy: The neglected disease eating up families – Daily Monitor

Who's stockpiling abortion pills amid bans – Axios

Scientists scramble to track LA wildfires’ long-term health impacts – Science

Is breastfeeding ‘exclusive’? Barriers facing global health professionals and proposed solutions – PLOS Global Public Health (commentary)

How to buy a year of happiness, explained in one chart – Vox Issue No. 2700
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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96 Global Health NOW: The Rocky Response to Burma’s Earthquake; Revisiting Extraordinary Journeys; and The Dangerous Blights of Skin Bleaching View this email in your browser March 31, 2025 Forward Share Post A Buddhist monk walking near a collapsed pagoda after an earthquake in Mandalay, central Burma (Myanmar), on March 30. AP Photo/Thein Zaw shared via a Facebook post The Rocky Response to Burma’s Earthquake 
As the death toll in Burma rises from a 7.7 magnitude earthquake on Friday, the difficulty of the disaster response is coming into focus, with the country’s ongoing civil war and recent upheaval in global aid complicating basic recovery efforts, reports the AP.

The latest: ~2,000 people have died in the earthquake devastation; “countless” remain buried under rubble as civilian-led efforts to dig out survivors—largely by hand—continue. 

• A UN assessment found that many health facilities had been damaged and warned that a “severe shortage of medical supplies is hampering response efforts.”

“Already dire”: 

• The country’s civil war has displaced over 3 million people and has left many regions dangerous for aid groups to reach. 


• The quake is “compounding an already dire humanitarian situation” for millions of children, warned UNICEF. 

A reshaped aid landscape: China, Russia, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other countries have dispatched emergency teams and funds, reports Reuters via Irish Independent.

• But U.S. aid operations remain in chaos amid Trump administration cuts, reports The New York Times (gift link), as many of the systems needed to funnel American aid to Myanmar “have been shattered.” 

Building safety fears: Meanwhile, the collapse of a high-rise under construction in Bangkok that killed 11 has residents concerned about buildings’ earthquake resilience, reports The New York Times (gift link). 

• A Thai watchdog had previously flagged concerns about the building, reports The Straits Times. 

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Eight Palestine Red Crescent Society medics were killed when Israel’s military fired on ambulances they identified as “suspicious vehicles”—marking the single deadliest attack on Red Cross members anywhere in the world since 2017 and bringing to 30 the number of PRCS workers killed since October 2023. The Guardian

South Korea’s deadly fire that killed 30 people and destroyed ~4,000 structures is under investigation; a man is suspected of starting the fire while performing an ancestral rite by a family grave. BBC

The WHO, citing a $600 million budget gap for 2025, has proposed slashing its 2026–27 budget by 21%, to $4.2 billion, and signaled that job cuts are imminent; unconfirmed reports estimate that 20%–40% of the agency’s 9,000+ jobs globally could be eliminated. Geneva Health Files

Mexico will ban junk food in schools as a part of its redoubled efforts to mitigate its childhood obesity epidemic, with the guidelines forbidding sugary fruit drinks, packaged chips, and other processed snacks taking effect this week. AP U.S. Global Health Policy News The NIH’s Most Reckless Cuts Yet: Ending clinical trials with no warning can put patients at risk. – The Atlantic

The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations – ProPublica

Tuberculosis is the world’s top infectious killer. Aid groups say Trump’s funding freezes will cause more deaths – CNN

‘We should have been hammered a long time ago’: African countries thank Trump for aid wake-up call – The Telegraph

RFK Jr. Expected To Lay Off Entire Office Of Infectious Disease And HIV/AIDS Policy – Forbes

How Trump is following Project 2025’s radical roadmap to defund science – Nature

Trump Slashed International Aid. Geneva Is Feeling the Impact. – Bloomberg CityLab GHN EXCLUSIVE Revisiting Extraordinary Journeys
If you werenʼt able to join GHN earlier this month for Extraordinary Journeys: Stories of Refugees Fleeing Conflict and Shaping Global Health, you can now view recordings of each story.

• This special event, co-hosted by GHN and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, spotlighted the remarkable experiences of public health practitioners with lived experience as refugees.


• Storytellers from Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria shared firsthand accounts of living and working amid humanitarian crises, fleeing conflict, and shaping impactful roles in public health.

WATCH HERE GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH The Dangerous Blights of Skin Bleaching 
More urgent warnings are needed about skin lightening’s dangers, say physicians in Nigeria, as more people are being treated for skin damage and other health problems, and as more children are being harmed by bleaching products, reports NPR Goats and Soda. 

Surging popularity: Sales of skin-lightening products across Africa are projected to nearly double to $15.7 billion by 2030. The practice is especially prevalent in Nigeria, where 77% of women use skin-lightening products, per the WHO. 

Bodily toll: The ingredients in the products, which include acids and steroids, not only damage skin—they can “wreak havoc and damage internal organs,” said Lagos dermatologist Vivian Oputa. 

Children at risk: Doctors say they are seeing more children—even babies—with burning and discoloration after their parents used bleaching products on them, often under social pressure, reports the BBC. 

Calls for regulation: Doctors say government regulation is needed to limit access to potent pharmaceutical creams that should require prescriptions. QUICK HITS Israel-Gaza war: Wounded Palestinians dying for lack of supplies, surgeon says – BBC

WHO alert on US measles outbreak adds new genetic details – CIDRAP 

How can Africa sustain its HIV response amid US aid cuts? – The Lancet HIV (commentary) Thanks for the tip, Elizabeth S. Rose! 

Boosting advanced-stage clinical trial capacity in East and Central Africa to combat regional epidemic threats – CEPI

Morning-after pill to be made free in England pharmacies – Medical Xpress

How a ban on food dye in West Virginia has forged an unlikely alliance – The Guardian

New 3D technology could soon bring surgeons closer to patients in Africa’s most remote regions – AP Issue No. 2699
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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96 Global Health NOW: Gutting the Global Vaccine Effort; PEPFAR’s Precarious Future; and The Dog Days of Cinema Documents reveal plans to withdraw U.S. funding for Gavi, the global vaccine alliance View this email in your browser March 27, 2025 Forward Share Post A Somali mother holding a medical card waits for her baby to be given a pentavalent vaccine injection provided by Gavi, UNICEF, and WHO, at a medical clinic in Mogadishu, on April 24, 2013. Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Gutting the Global Vaccine Effort
The Trump administration has released its plans to withdraw U.S. funding for Gavi, the global alliance that helps provide essential vaccines for children in low-income countries, reports The New York Times (gift link).

Overview: Vaccinations via Gavi have saved ~19 million children’s lives over the past 25 years. The U.S. contributes 13% of its budget.

• Loss of U.S. support could mean 75 million children do not get routine vaccinations in the next five years; and that 1.2 million+ children die as a result, per Gavi’s estimations.

• “This is not just a bureaucratic decision, there are children’s lives at stake, global health security will be at stake,” said Austin Demby, the health minister of Sierra Leone. 

Other cuts: The Gavi termination was included in a USAID memo submitted to Congress this week delineating foreign aid programs on the chopping block—including major programs that combat malaria and funding for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which tracks zoonotic diseases like bird flu.

• It is unclear whether the Trump administration can legally end the programs unilaterally, reports The Guardian.  

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
10,000 HHS employees will be cut from various U.S. health agencies, as part of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s continued overhauls, reports NBC News; meanwhile, health departments will see already-disbursed funding pulled back from their COVID- and infectious disease-related programs, reports the AP

A garden soil sample from a lab technician’s garden has led to a new antibiotic capable of killing drug-resistant bacteria by targeting the ribosome, while leaving human cells unharmed, per a new study published in Nature.

Influenza A antibodies have been detected in U.S. cattle, finds a large study published in the Journal of Virology—showing that cattle are susceptible to human seasonal flu strains as well as swine influenza viruses. CIDRAP

Male birth control that is hormone-free is slated to enter clinical trials after research published in Nature Communications found that the new drug, YCT-529, effectively lowered sperm count in male mice, and was 99% effective in preventing pregnancies. Medical Xpress HIV/AIDS PEPFAR’s Precarious Future
Congressional authorization for PEPFAR expired on Tuesday, further shrouding the global HIV/AIDS program’s future, reports Devex. 

Technically still alive: PEPFAR has been allocated some funding through the end of the fiscal year. But its long-term survival remains in question with the dismantling of USAID—which administered the majority of PEPFAR services. 

Immediate impact: Clinics are closing, prescriptions are not being refilled, per Health Policy Watch. 

• Burkina Faso, Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Ukraine will likely run out of antiretroviral medicine within weeks, per the WHO. 

• Studies on an HIV vaccine, long-acting pre-exposure prophylaxis, and tuberculosis have been halted. 

Overhaul on the horizon? Conservative advocates have been calling for a scaled-down program, and one that prioritizes abstinence and education. 

Further research cuts: Meanwhile, the NIH has eliminated funding for dozens of HIV-related research grants in the U.S., reports CNN—a move that will cause the country to “slide back on decades of progress,” said one researcher.  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES FUNGUS How Cats, Spores, and Pollution are Driving an Epidemic
Brazil is currently facing the world’s largest and “most persistent” epidemic of sporotrichosis, a fungal infection spread primarily through cats. And recent research sheds new light on how pollution is contributing to the spread.  

Background: Sporotrichosis is a chronic disease that primarily affects the skin and lymphatic system and can spread to humans from animals. 

New insights: A study published in Mycology revealed an “alarming genetic diversity” in the fungus, and found indicators to suggest that exposure to urban pollutants may be driving rapid adaptations.

Looking for solutions: Researchers also identified molecular markers that could enhance diagnostics and treatments, and pointed to an “urgent” need for enhanced fungal surveillance.

SciTechDaily ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION The Dog Days of Cinema  
People seem to know everything about their dogs. Their DNA makeup. Their favorite treat, scratch, and spot to relieve themselves.
 
But what about their favorite movie? If you donʼt know … itʼs probably Flow, a Latvian film that took home an Oscar and won the hearts of pets everywhere.
 
The animated feature is a heartening tale of interspecies collaboration in a postapocalyptic world—and pets canʼt get enough. One TikTok video shows not one, but four cats rapt at the film. They donʼt even mind if itʼs on a tiny laptop screen.
 
Producer Matiss Kaza admits he hadnʼt considered pets “as a potential target audience,” according to The New York Times (gift article), but was amused when he heard folks were taking their cats to the theater to see the film, he told NPR. 
 
But the movieʼs pet popularity also raises a question: While we canʼt get enough of animal videos, our petsʼ favorite film features no humans. Should we take that as a hint? QUICK HITS SA research grants potentially on hold, says leaked memo – Bhekisisa
 
Colorado is poised to pass some of the toughest gun laws in the country – NPR   Surgeons transplant genetically modified pig liver into Chinese patient – The Guardian

Kansas measles cases double to 23 and new Ohio outbreak sickens 10 – AP

Zooming in on the structure of the lethal Ebola virus – Phys.org

FDA approves first new antibiotic for uncomplicated UTIs in nearly 30 years – Healio

'Grandpas' got together to help kids. Scientists say it boosts the elders' health, too – NPR Shots Issue No. 2698
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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96 Global Health NOW: COVID-19 Research Canceled; Chikungunya Vaccines En Route to Réunion; and DOGE Cuts Harm Vulnerable Vets View this email in your browser March 26, 2025 Forward Share Post Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (blue) infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (green), isolated from a patient sample. NIH/NAID/IMAGE.FR/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty COVID-19 Research Canceled
The NIH and CDC have begun widespread terminations of grants related to COVID-19 research and public health outreach, saying “the grant funds are no longer necessary,” per an internal NIH document, reports Nature. 

The large-scale grant terminations, amounting to billions, are unprecedented and “dangerous for future pandemic preparedness,” said virologist Jason McLellan at the University of Texas, Austin, who was leading one of the canceled projects. 

• The virus has killed 7 million+ people globally, including 1.2+ million people in the U.S. Hundreds of people still die every week, and millions suffer debilitating long COVID symptoms. 

On the chopping block, per Science:

• A program designing antiviral drugs for a range of pandemic-potential viruses. 


• Research to develop improved COVID-19 vaccines and to address long COVID.


• At least two Serological Sciences Centers of Excellence set up to study virus transmission and immune response.

Cuts to health departments: Meanwhile, the CDC is axing ~$11 billion in COVID-related funding for health departments, reports NBC News—with HHS communications chief Andrew Nixon calling COVID a “non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”

• The funds were largely being used for testing, surveillance, vaccination, modernizing disease data systems, and addressing disparities.

Related: Vaccination cuts the risk of long COVID 27%, review suggests – CIDRAP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Deaths of children under 5 and stillbirths declined globally in 2023, to 4.8 million and ~1.9 million, respectively, continuing a trend of decreases since 2000; but progress has slowed in recent years—a pattern that experts worry new global funding cuts may exacerbate. WHO

UK parenting charities and support groups are criticizing new guidance for postpartum women issued in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which recommended exercise and reduced screen time at night to improve physical and mental health; the parents’ groups say the guidance is “wildly optimistic” and could become “another stick to beat new mums with.” The Guardian

Healthy aging has been linked to a midlife diet rich in plant-based foods and low intake of ultra-processed foods, per a new study published in Nature Medicine that found that such a diet leads to higher likelihood of reaching age 70 without chronic disease. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (news release) Thanks for the tip, Xiaodong Cai!

New FDA and NIH leaders have been confirmed by the U.S. Senate; Marty Makary will lead the FDA, while Jay Bhattacharya will head the NIH; both gained prominence for criticizing the U.S. COVID-19 response, and both were confirmed along party lines. CBS Trump Administration News Researchers in limbo as Columbia bows to Trump’s demands in bid to restore $400M federal funding – AP

Vaccine skeptic hired to head federal study of immunizations and autism – The Washington Post (gift link)

5 high-level officials leave CDC – The Hill

Remedy Supported by Kennedy Leaves Some Measles Patients More Ill – The New York Times (gift link)

FDA commissioner's abortion pill minefield – Axios CHIKUNGUNYA OUTBREAK Vaccines En Route to Réunion  
Chikungunya vaccines are being rushed to France’s Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, where an outbreak has killed two, hospitalized dozens, and infected thousands of people over the last few weeks.
 
40,000 doses of Ixchiq, a Valneva-produced vaccine, will be aimed at the most vulnerable—including those ages 65+, with severe comorbidities, or working in vector control.

• Chikungunya, spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, is rarely fatal but causes symptoms including fever, headaches, and debilitating joint pain.


• No specific antibody treatments exist, but the vaccine is highly effective at preventing infection.

Climate connection? Cyclones, like the one that hit Réunion late last month, can leave standing water that increases populations of outbreak-fueling mosquitoes.  

The Telegraph GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MENTAL HEALTH DOGE Cuts Harm Vulnerable Vets
Veterans’ mental health services are in disarray amid sweeping changes ordered by President Trump and implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Significant shifts: Thousands of mental health providers, including many fully remote employees, must work full-time from federal office space that often cannot accommodate their numbers or ensure patient privacy. 

• Clinicians say the changes, as well as the layoffs of ~2,000 probationary employees, will degrade mental health treatment at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which was already experiencing severe staffing shortages. 

Some providers predict a mass exodus of specialists, like psychiatrists and psychologists. They also expect wait times to increase, and veterans to seek treatment outside the agency—or withdraw from treatment altogether.

The New York Times (gift article) OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Thousands of women and girls in the West Bank exposed to gender based violence – The Telegraph

Guillain–Barré syndrome outbreak in Pune: a health emergency – The Lancet (commentary)

The toxic storm brewing in Soweto’s Snake Park – Bhekisisa

Botswana reports surge in malaria cases – Xinhua

Navigating US global health aid cuts: What can past donor exits teach us? – Brookings Institution (commentary)

‘Life and death’: Beshear vetoes GOP ‘clarification’ of Kentucky’s abortion ban – Kentucky Lantern

Can generative AI tackle global health problems? – Stanford Medicine’s SCOPE

As opposition to fluoride grows, rural America risks a new surge of tooth decay – NPR

The Liverpool team preparing for future pandemics – BBC

‘Huge brown eyes’: Irish farmer comes up with alpaca therapy for elderly patients, special-needs children – The Telegraph India Issue No. 2697
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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96 Global Health NOW: What Do American Kids Learn About Sex? It Depends Who You Ask.; ‘Flying Blind’ on Measles; and Museum Medication View this email in your browser March 25, 2025 Forward Share Post GLOBAL HEALTH NOW EXCLUSIVE Klaus Vedfelt, Getty Creative What Do American Kids Learn About Sex? It Depends Who You Ask.
The U.S. has no national requirements for teaching sex education in schools—leading to a patchwork of policies and teachings across states, districts, and even individual schools.
 
Popular but scarce: Over 90% of parents and guardians in the U.S. support their children receiving comprehensive sexuality education (CSE)—which incorporates complete and age-appropriate information about sexuality, according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United Status (SIECUS). 

However, only 38% of all high schools and 14% of middle schools in the U.S. cover all of the CDCʼs priority sexual health topics, which include CSE topics like condom use and STD prevention.
 
Despite the lack of requirements, federal grants still play an important—and sometimes paradoxical role in sex ed teachings. Federal funding is available for programs rooted in CSE—and abstinence-only teachings. This can result in both approaches being taught in the same school, Allison Macklin, policy director of SIECUS.
 
“Itʼs the students that suffer from this confusion in information,” she says.
 
ʼChilling effectʼ: While there have not been direct attacks on sex education, policy recommendations that target DEI, gender identity, and restroom access for trans people have raised concerns about the future of funding for CSE providers, says Macklin.
 
But advocates remain determined to broaden access to CSE across the country. “The urgency that people feel to make sure their kids have vital, lifesaving information—that is driving a real commitment to making sure kids get this information,” says Emily Cabral of Wholly Informed Sex Ed (WISE), a nonprofit that provides CSE. 
 
Annalies Winny, Global Health NOW
  READ THE FULL STORY GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Lab tests have confirmed that the cause of a mysterious illness that killed 53 people and sickened 943 in the northwest DRC was malaria, per the National Public Health Institute; health officials are still waiting on results from water, food, and other samples sent abroad for testing. Reuters via Deccan Herald
 
Avoidable deaths increased in all U.S. states from 2009 to 2021, while such deaths decreased in other high-income countries. JAMA Internal Medicine

MIT engineers have devised a new, less painful way to deliver certain drugs, such as long-lasting contraceptives, in higher doses by injecting them as a suspension of tiny crystals, administered through a narrow needle. News Medical
 
Parisians voted in a referendum to close 500 more city streets to cars and remove 10% of the current parking spots as part of a push by Mayor Anne Hidalgo to make the city friendlier to pedestrians, bikers, and greenery. Bloomberg CityLab Trump Administration News Trump nominates Susan Monarez for CDC director, elevating from acting role – CBS
Trump administration cancels at least 68 grants focused on LGBTQ health questions – AP

NIH ends future funding to study the health effects of climate change – ProPublica

Don’t take scientific progress for granted – The Baltimore Sun (commentary)

USAID cuts have disastrous consequences for global push to end TB – Context (commentary)

What RFK Jr.’s plans for baby formula mean for parents – The 19th MEASLES ‘Flying Blind’ Without Surveillance    The U.S. decision to stop funding the global measles surveillance infrastructure could have dire consequences at a time when the disease is rapidly gaining ground, reports NPR Goats and Soda.

Background: The Global Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network is comprised of 700+ labs in 150+ countries. 

• The network plays a key role in identifying and tracking measles strains worldwide.


• It also mobilizes an early outbreak response in affected communities.

While it is run by the WHO, it has been funded by the CDC since its inception 25 years ago. The Trump administration’s exit from the WHO means the network now "faces imminent shutdown,” while growing outbreaks are being reported across the globe. 

• “This network is a backbone of health defense,” says Tom Frieden, former CDC director and president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. “If it collapses, the U.S. and the rest of the world will be flying blind.”

Meanwhile, in Australia: Public health leaders warn the country could be “fertile ground” for measles after five cases were confirmed in Victoria; Australia is below the WHO-recommended 95% vaccination rate, reports The Guardian.

Related:

Should You Get a Measles Vaccine Booster? – Yale Medicine

'I'm worried it's getting worse': Texas measles outbreak grows as families resist vaccination – NBC GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MENTAL HEALTH Museum Medication
A Swiss town is launching a new medical intervention for its residents: Free tickets to the museum.

The town of Neuchâtel has initiated a two-year pilot project covering the costs of “museum prescriptions” ordered by doctors who believe patients could benefit from a jaunt in the town’s four museums.

Fact-based (and artifact-based) medicine: The project is based on a 2019 WHO report that found the arts can bolster mental health and lower the risk of cognitive decline.

• There are also physical benefits, say doctors who have issued scripts to patients who need more physical activity out of the house. 

So far: ~500 prescriptions have been distributed in the town of 46,000, and town leaders hope to expand the program.

AP OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS A war within the war: Ukraine's ill children – The New York Times (gift link)

Despite progress, HIV stigma and discrimination continue to bubble beneath the surface in Thailand – UNAIDS

23andMe bankruptcy underscores health privacy gaps – Axios

World's first case of bird flu in sheep detected in England - The Guardian

South Sudan: Delivering baby on the road at 2am just another day for midwife – The Irish Examiner

Public health on the ground at Kenya's Kakuma Refugee Camp – UC Berkeley School of Public Health

Why IUD insertions are painful for many patients and what can be done better – PBS NewsHour

Reducing traffic in Barcelona by 25% would prevent around 200 premature deaths a year linked to pollution – ISGlobal - Barcelona Institute for Global Health Issue No. 2696
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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96 Global Health NOW: How to Keep Traction in the TB Fight?; Fewer Eyes on Food Safety; and Preschool Parasite Prevention View this email in your browser March 24, 2025 Forward Share Post A tuberculosis patient at a government-run tuberculosis hospital. Allahabad, India, November 6, 2019. Ritesh Shukla/NurPhoto via Getty How to Keep Traction in the TB Fight?
World TB Day arrives at a critical juncture for the world’s most fatal infectious disease. 

• Despite gains in some countries against the disease, that “progress remains fragile,” said Hans Henri Kluge, the WHO’s Regional Director for Europe, per Reuters—and U.S. cuts to global TB interventions could undo decades-long efforts.
   
• In South Africa, a “tsunami” of NIH grant cuts is gutting anti-TB efforts, with termination letters sent out over the weekend, reports Science. Up to 70% of the country’s HIV and TB research is funded through NIH, per Bhekisisa. 

Today, a statement from the WHO Regional Office for Africa called for “renewed commitment” to the TB fight, including increased funding. 

A global uptick: 

• Europe saw a 10% rise in child TB infections in 2023. 


• In the U.S., TB cases rose by over 15% from 2022 to 2023, and an outbreak in Kansas City continues to perplex officials, reports PBS News.

Good news: TB treatment continues to evolve as four new studies show major innovations, per News Medical, including rapid diagnostics and a nasal spray for tuberculous meningitis.

Related:

A Late-Stage Tuberculosis Vaccine is Making its Way Through Clinical Trials – Contagion Live

A roadmap for integrating nutritional assessment, counselling, and support into the care of people with tuberculosis – The Lancet Global Health

Everything Is Tuberculosis: A Conversation With John Green – Public Health On Call GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   UNICEF condemned the looting of supplies from Khartoum’s Al Bashair Hospital—including 2,200 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food for children suffering from malnutrition; iron and folic acid supplements for pregnant and lactating women; and midwife kits and other supplies meant for mothers, newborns, and children. UN News
 
Ohio, Maryland, and Alabama are among the U.S. states reporting new measles cases, with 378 cases—including 309 in Texas—confirmed in the first few months of 2025; 11 other states have also confirmed cases. The Guardian

A fake CDC webpage alleging that vaccines cause autism has been removed from the website of the Children’s Health Defense—an anti-vaccine nonprofit started by now-U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ordered the page’s removal following outcry over the weekend. The New York Times (gift link)

Safety nets installed on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge reduced suicides by 73% and increased third-party interventions when someone was at imminent risk of jumping from the bridge, per a study published in Injury Prevention. The Washington Post (gift link) DATA POINT REGULATION Fewer Eyes on Food Safety 
Food safety advocates are raising alarms about vulnerabilities in the U.S. food system as budget cuts hit an already underfunded system. 

Cuts on the table: A $34 million cut to the FDA could reduce the number of employees and labs devoted to product safety. Already, freezes on government spending have kept staff from purchasing food to perform routine tests for bacteria and PFAS.

Key committees shut down: Committees overseeing meat and poultry inspection and microbiological criteria for foods have been issued stop-work orders—upending in-progress initiatives to prevent pathogens. 

Stakes: Last year, ~500 people were hospitalized and 19 died from foodborne illnesses with a known cause—2X more than in 2023. 

The Quote: “It’s as if someone, without enough information, has said, What’s a good way to save money on our automobiles? Let’s just take out the seatbelts and airbags, because do we really need them?” said Darin Detwiler, a food safety consultant. 

The New York Times (gift link)  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NEGLECTED DISEASES Preschool Parasite Prevention
Earlier this month, nearly 3,000 preschoolers in Uganda received the first preventive treatment tailored for their age group for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease affecting ~240 million people worldwide. 

• ~50 million preschool-age children globally are at risk of getting schistosomiasis. 


• Untreated, the disease can affect cognitive development and cause malnutrition, anemia, and organ damage or death. 

The treatment, derived from a well-established drug used to treat the disease in school-age children and adults, was made available through the ADOPT pilot program from the Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium.

More pilots are planned throughout Uganda and in other countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya in the coming months, with discussions underway on piloting the drug in Senegal and Tanzania.

Devex OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Study finds foreign aid sanctions set back decades of progress on maternal and child mortality – Stanford Report

‘Chaos and Confusion’ at the Crown Jewel of American Science – The New York Times (gift link)

Global AIDS program teetering after Trump admin’s shock-and-awe – Politico

The COVID Mistake No One Talks Enough About – The Atlantic

New friction surfaces over replicating research – Axios

Lawsuits Against Diversity Initiatives in Science Multiply – Undark

Reporter's notebook: 8 theories why fentanyl deaths are plummeting – NPR Issue No. 2695
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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96 Global Health NOW: How a ‘Safer’ Opioid Caused a New Devastation; How to Keep Doing Global Health; and Rootsy Music German drugmaker Grünenthal promoted tapentadol as “less addictive” than other opioids. View this email in your browser March 20, 2025 Forward Share Post A building on the premises of the pharmaceutical company Grünenthal in Aachen, Germany, on December 10, 2020. Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty How a ‘Safer’ Opioid Caused a New Devastation 
Across the globe, prescriptions of the painkiller tapentadol have spiked over the last five years—eclipsing oxycodone in some countries—as the drug’s German maker Grünenthal promotes the drug as a “less addictive” option to other opioids.

But as prescriptions have increased, so have reports of addiction, overdose, and death. And the claims the company has made about the drug’s safety have “no convincing evidence,” finds an investigation by The Examination and journalistic partners in 10+ countries. 

Background: Grünenthal’s efforts to promote tapentadol have involved:

• Funding studies in medical journals to support its claim of relative safety

• Paying millions to doctors, medical organizations, and patient groups across Latin America and Europe

• Educational messaging about the drug’s “minimum potential of abuse” that downplayed respiratory side effects, and marketing the drug as “highly effective” for chronic pain—a tactic that flouts safety guidelines from the WHO, US, and UK

Global impact: 

• In Australia: Coroners have reported dozens of tapentadol-related overdose deaths.

• In India: Psychiatrists are seeing a trend of teenage boys injecting tapentadol.

• In the U.S.: Addiction doctors warn of an uptick in tapentadol dependency.

Blind spot: Many countries are not tracking tapentadol-related dependency, meaning the true scope of the problem remains largely unknown. 

The Examination 

Related: Trump administration extends opioid emergency as fentanyl deaths drop – NPR  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
Extreme heat last year has “reshaped the planet,” inflicting permanent damage on glaciers, oceans, and ecosystems, and signaling a near future filled with devastating heat waves, details from the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate report show. The Independent

As bird flu spreads on commercial poultry farms, the USDA today announced two new biosecurity assessment programs—one offering onsite surveying of wildlife hazards and the other reviewing farms’ biosecurity plans; meanwhile, the agency provided more details about “highly pathogenic” H7N9 avian flu detected at a Mississippi farm. CIDRAP

Uganda’s Ministry of Health has started a 42-day countdown to declare the country Ebola-free after two more patients recovered from the virus and were discharged from treatment facilities; of 12 patients with confirmed cases, 10 have recovered and two have died. NilePost

The Jynneos mpox vaccine was 58% effective against mpox infection overall after one dose, and 84% effective in people without HIV—but was only 35% effective in those with HIV, per an observational combined study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. CIDRAP GHN EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY Sunitha, an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA), checks on a pregnant woman outside her house on May 18, 2021, in Mysuru, India. Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty How to Keep Doing Global Health: Tips from the Global South
In the face of U.S. cuts to global health initiatives, two global health researchers from India share three experience-based strategies in a GHN commentary. 

Change who you work for. 

• At times, global health researchers can forget who they should work for because of a system and a culture that forces researchers to think about “fundable” ideas, write Siddhesh Zadey and Dhananjaya Sharma.

• “If you’re in global health, you work for the underprivileged, underserved people … [not] the funders,” they write.

Change what you work on. 

• When you do not have money, you have to be creative about what you work on. Researchers should ask themselves, do we truly need another randomized controlled trial to answer the question?

Walk the talk. 

• “Perhaps, the crisis is an opportunity for the ‘topmost’ to rekindle their volunteering spirit by lending their expertise and time to those most adversely affected by the defunding initiatives,” write Zadey and Sharma.

Siddhesh Zadey and Dhananjaya Sharma for Global Health NOW GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NEUROLOGICAL ILLNESSES A Mysterious ALS Cluster 
A decade ago, neurologists were startled when they discovered a cluster of 16 ALS cases around the tiny mountain village of Montchavin in France. 

Elusive origin: ALS is rare, and its underlying causes are still being researched. Hereditary genetic factors figure in 10-15% of cases—but none of the Montchavin patients had a family history of ALS. 

• Researchers have also looked into environmental factors like industrial chemicals and air pollution, but found no links. 

Focus on fungi: One researcher eventually found that all of the patients had eaten false morels, a toxic mushroom sometimes sought and eaten as a delicacy. 

• While some scientists say the theory needs further study, others say it is similar to a cluster in Guam, which was linked to ingestion of a cycad plant. 

El País ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Rootsy Music
We all did some wacky things during pandemic lockdown days. So it’s not exactly surprising to hear that in 2020 biologist-turned-musician Tarun Nayar connected his synthesizer to a salmonberry bush. What is surprising: The plant was alive with the sound of music.

“I could actually ‘listen’ to the salmonberry bush,” says the Montreal-based Nayar—who describes the process of converting natural (and non-audible to human ears) bioelectric signals into hypnotic electronic music as “biodata sonification,” per Atlas Obscura. 

Mic check: In the past five years, Nayar has tuned into the everyday symphonies emitting from plants and fungi—enjoyed by his growing audience across YouTube and TikTok—with mushrooms like chanterelles and amanitas serving as especially compelling muses.

And the fandom goes both ways: Mushrooms, apparently, make for an enthusiastic audience, finds a study published last year in Biology Letters: Researchers found that playing sound to a green microscopic fungus, Trichoderma harzianum, led to growth rates 7X faster than fungus grown in silence, reports The New York Times (gift link).  QUICK HITS Trump administration weighing future of CDC's HIV prevention division – Reuters

US evangelical groups urge Trump to spare HIV/Aids program from aid cuts – The Guardian

Toxic ‘sea foam’ kills animals and leaves surfers with breathing problems and blurred vision – The Telegraph

Popular ADHD TikTok videos often do not accurately reflect symptoms, experts say – Euronews

How will ‘Little Scandinavia’ experiment play out in U.S. prisons? – Science Issue No. 2694
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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96 Global Health NOW: Strategies Diverge as Bird Flu Spreads; Interrupted Agent Orange Cleanup; and Factory Farms and the Rise of Superbugs Bird flu is a “transboundary threat,” says UN View this email in your browser March 19, 2025 Forward Share Post Lohmann Brown chickens stand outside a barn at Meadow Haven Farm, in Sheffield, Illinois, on August 4, 2015. Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images Strategies Diverge as Bird Flu Spreads 
As bird flu continues to ravage U.S. poultry farms, UN officials warn that the virus has reached “unprecedented” scale and requires a coordinated global response, reports The Hill. 

• In a briefing held yesterday, UN Food and Agriculture Organization leaders outlined H5N1’s mounting toll: hundreds of millions of lost poultry, ~300 newly affected wild bird species in the last four years, increasing spillover into mammals, and food security risk, per UN News.

Call to action: Describing the virus as a “transboundary threat,” the agency called on countries to improve surveillance, expand lab capacity, consider vaccination plans, and promote risk management through biosecurity.

Kennedy’s tack: Meanwhile, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has floated a strategy to let H5N1 “run through the flock” to identify immune birds, reports The New York Times (gift link)—which veterinary scientists say would pose a wide range of hazards: 

• Every infection is an opportunity for H5N1 to evolve into a more virulent form dangerous to mammals and humans. 

• Farmed poultry have low genetic diversity and weak immune systems, resulting in painful deaths in ~100% of infected flocks. 

• Such a strategy would also mean longer quarantines and lost revenue.

The Quote: “It’s a recipe for disaster,” said Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas. GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
The measles outbreak in western Texas has grown to 279 cases—nearly reaching the total number confirmed for all of 2024 (285 cases), according to new state data published yesterday, ABC News reports; Texas public health officials say the outbreak could take a year to contain, according to STAT.

Ongoing dengue transmission in parts of the U.S. led the CDC to issue a Health Alert Network notice yesterday with updated testing guidance; infections have been increasing globally for the past five years, with the Americas region seeing pronounced surges. CIDRAP

Smoking rates have risen in some regions of England for the first time since 2006, finds a new study published in the journal Addiction; researchers found that smoking increased 10% in southern England between 2020 and 2024. The Guardian

Climate change is accelerating, finds the new State of the Global Climate report—with global temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions, and sea levels reaching record highs in 2024, reports CBS News; meanwhile, researchers say heart disease could double or triple in the next 25 years if current heat trends continue, per a study published in the European Heart Journal, reports Al Jazeera. FOREIGN AID CUTS Interrupted Agent Orange Cleanup
Efforts to clean up an enormous chemical spill at an air base in Vietnam have been halted by USAID cuts—putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of poisoning, U.S. diplomats and human rights groups say. 

Background: Remediation efforts at the Bien Hoa air base were started in 2019, when the U.S. government committed $430 million+ to help clean up widespread dioxin contamination that dates back to the Vietnam War—when the U.S. brought the toxin to the country. 

Halted work: The sudden USAID shutdown meant work immediately stopped, leaving pits with dioxin-contaminated soil exposed at the cusp of the country’s rainy season. 

High risk: With enough rain, dioxin could flood into nearby communities’ food supply and contaminate a major river flowing into Ho Chi Minh City. 

ProPublica GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE Factory Farms and the Rise of Superbugs
Conditions at factory farms across Europe “paint a bleak picture of animal welfare,” with animals living in cramped grassless pens coated with filth.

Such farming practices are also fueling the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs on the continent, including MRSA.

How? Animals in poor feedlot conditions are more likely to contract infections, which has led to a decades-long overdependence on antibiotics. Now, once easily treatable illnesses don’t respond to drugs. 

• The meat industry is responsible for 73% of global antibiotic use.

The stakes: ~700,000 people globally die every year from infections caused by resistant bacteria. By 2050, this number could rise to 10 million.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Related: The Many Costs of Cheap Chicken – Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health magazine OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS What will happen if Trump cuts the US’s Global Fund contributions? We work it out – Bhekisisa

‘It’s back to drug rationing’: the end of HIV was in sight. Then came the cuts – The Guardian

Trump dministration considers plan to eliminate CDC's HIV prevention division – NBC

Private equity ‘gobbling’ up care facilities for people with disabilities – STAT

What’s in store for US science as funding bill averts government shutdown – Nature

Epilepsy Patients in Africa Fight Stigma and Neglect – IPS Issue No. 2693
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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96 Global Health NOW: Tedros Details Human Costs of U.S. Cuts; Moving Beyond Stigma in Mexico; and The Bureaucrat Bridging Gaps View this email in your browser March 18, 2025 Forward Share Post A woman and her child attend a medical consultation at a mobile clinic operated in partnership with USAID. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 29, 2024. Clarens Siffroy SIFFROY/AFP via Getty Tedros Details Human Costs of U.S. Cuts  
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had a request yesterday for the U.S.: reconsider its cancellation of global health support or withdraw the funds slowly giving countries time to prepare, STAT reports.

• “The U.S. administration [is] within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent,” Tedros said at a news conference. “But the U.S. also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it’s done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding.”

Impact of U.S. cuts:

• Malaria: An additional 15 million cases and 100,000+ deaths are possible this year because of stockouts or supply chain problems with malaria diagnostics, medications, and insecticide-treated bed nets.


• HIV: Eight countries are experiencing “substantial disruptions” to antiretroviral supplies and will run out of medicines within months, Health Policy Watch reports.


• TB: 27 countries in Africa and Asia are dealing with disruptions to diagnosis and treatment as well as “collapsing” surveillance systems, Tedros said.

Don’t ask Bill: Philanthropist Bill Gates has been lobbying the U.S. administration to continue funding vital global health programs and warned that no foundation could fill in the gap left by U.S. funding cuts, Reuters reports.

Related:
 
UK aid cuts will undermine global health and pose a risk to children's lives – The BMJ
 
Eighty percent of WHO-supported facilities in Afghanistan risk shutdown by June – WHO GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   The U.S. reported its first outbreak of H7N9 bird flu since 2017, on a farm of 47,654 commercial broiler breeder chickens in Noxubee, Mississippi; H7N9 has a higher death rate—killing 40% of people infected since 2013—than the H5N1 strain that killed one person in the U.S. earlier this year. CBC

A midwife and one of her employees were arrested and charged with performing illegal abortions at a health clinic near Houston; they are the first to be criminally charged under the state’s strict abortion ban. The Texas Tribune

Gender-affirming hormone therapy was associated with lower rates of moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms among 3,592 trans and nonbinary people prescribed the treatment compared to those who didn’t receive the treatment, finds a study spanning 48 months of follow-up. JAMA Network Open
 
The Trump administration removed a 2024 surgeon general's advisory on the public health impacts of gun violence and a related webpage from the Health and Human Services website (still available here); guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Axios More Trump Administration News ____________________________________________________________As bird flu continues to spread, Trump administration sidelines key pandemic preparedness office – CNN

Trump administration cuts funding to long-term diabetes study: Report – The Independent

Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them To Scrub mRNA References on Grants – Cancer Health

The VA will deny gender dysphoria treatment to new patients – NPR

Trump Administration Aims to Eliminate E.P.A.’s Scientific Research Arm – The New York Times (gift article)

Overseas universities see opportunity in U.S. ‘brain drain’ – Science DATA POINT HARM REDUCTION Moving Beyond Stigma in Mexico
For years, Mexico has taken a “prohibitionist, hardline approach” to drug use, reinforcing a stigma that ties drug use to other criminal activities.

But recently, health advocates have been taking a different tack—toward harm reduction.

• One example: Checa tu Sustanciae (Check Your Substance) provides a way for people at events like music festivals to test drugs for fentanyl and other adulterants, and also equips those people with naloxone and practical information. 

The Quote: “The best way to reduce your risks is not to consume at all. But if you have made the decision to consume, we want you to have as much information as possible so you can take care of yourself,” said Zara Snapp, director of drug policy advocacy organization Instituto RIA.

AP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES DISEASE DETECTIVES The Bureaucrat Bridging Gaps
Consider this maddening prospect: A 5-year-old girl in Texas is diagnosed with a rare brain-eating amoeba—and none of her doctors know the cure.

Meanwhile, in California, researchers had recently discovered an effective antibiotic remedy. But that paper never reached the doctors in Texas. 

This tragic disconnect all too frequently leads to preventable suffering and death. But in a must-read narrative, Michael Lewis examines the mission of an FDA worker “buried under six layers on an agency organizational chart” who is seeking to solve the problem by creating a database for rare diseases and treatments, called CURE ID.

Despite the database’s lifesaving potential, the question remains: Will anyone use it? 

The Washington Post (gift link)  RESOURCES QUICK HITS Afghanistan: Security Council renews UN mission as WHO warns of health catastrophe – UN News

Mexican president pledges stronger missing persons efforts after mass grave found – Reuters

With measles on the rise, two-dose vaccine strategy is 'more important than ever' Northwestern Now – Northwestern University (news release)

Injectable PrEP use leads to zero new HIV infections among gay, trans and non-binary Brazilians – aidsmap

The Silent Struggle: MamaCare360 Pushes to Prioritize Maternal Mental Health in Nigeria – Global Citizen

Nearly 50 million people sign up call for clean air action for better health – WHO

Why We Don’t Want to Talk About the COVID-19 Pandemic – Georgetown University

An Old Drug With A Hidden Talent – Bloomberg Issue No. 2692
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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  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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