96 Global Health NOW: CDC in Turmoil; As Cholera Crisis Deepens, Africa Launches Emergency Plan; and Quick! To the Bat ‘Cuddle Ball’! View this email in your browser August 28, 2025 Forward Share Post Susan Monarez testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in Washington, D.C., on June 25. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty CDC in Turmoil
The top public health agency in the U.S. faces an escalating crisis as the CDC’s newly appointed director was abruptly ousted by the Trump administration yesterday, followed by the resignation of top agency officials in protest, reports The Guardian.     The background: Only a month in her position, CDC director Susan Monarez clashed with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over refusing to support sweeping changes to U.S. vaccine policies, reports The Washington Post (gift link).  

• Yesterday, the FDA limited COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk groups and removed authorization of one of the vaccines available to children, reports the AP.  

• After Monarez declined to commit to support the changes, the HHS released a statement announcing Monarez was “no longer director.” 

The latest: Monarez has refused to step down, with her lawyers saying she was targeted for refusing to support unscientific vaccine directives, and describing her firing as “legally deficient” as she has not resigned nor received a formal termination notice, reports The New York Times (gift link). 

• The attorneys also warned of “systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science.”  

The fallout: Four senior CDC officials resigned in protest, including the agency's chief medical officer, and leaders who oversaw vaccine safety and public health data. 

• “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health,” wrote Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, in a departure email. 

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES EDITOR'S NOTE Long Weekend for Labor Day    GHN will not be published Monday, September 1, in observance of the U.S. Labor Day holiday. We’ll be back with more news on Tuesday, September 2!  —Dayna  The Latest One-Liners   Kenya is launching a mass vaccination campaign next week to stem a surging clade 1b mpox outbreak, per the Africa CDC; 370 cases and seven deaths have been reported since July 2024, with 157 cases documented in the last six weeks. The Telegraph     Countries in the Americas need to immediately increase surveillance and vaccination efforts against pertussis (whooping cough), PAHO announced on Tuesday; cases leapt to 43,751 in 2024—a 10X increase over 2023—and include antibiotic-resistant strains. CIDRAP    Denmark and Greenland have officially apologized for their roles in the forced use of contraception for Greenlandic Indigenous girls and women in the 1960s and 70s; ~4,500 Inuit women and girls received IUDs during that time, with many women saying they were not given details of the procedure and did not give their consent. AP    Disability-related data serve as an early warning indicator for long COVID-19 risk, especially in areas where post-COVID conditions remain underreported, finds a new study published in Med Research that analyzed years lived with disability (YLDs) caused by COVID-19 across 920 locations worldwide in 2020 and 2021. News Medical  INFECTIOUS DISEASES As Cholera Crisis Deepens, Africa Launches Emergency Plan     Africa CDC and the WHO have launched a continent-wide cholera emergency preparedness and response plan as outbreaks surge across Sudan and surrounding regions.     The new initiative aims to reduce cholera deaths by 90% and eradicate the disease in 20 countries by 2030 by funding vaccines and mobilizing case management support in the face of current outbreaks, reports Anadolu Agency.  

• Fighting cholera is critical to “building a self-reliant Africa that produces its own vaccines and secures its future,” said Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema.  

Urgent need: The continent has seen an alarming rise in cholera, with 213,586 cases and 4,507 deaths reported among African Union member states in 2025 alone.     Sudan is struggling to contain its worst cholera outbreak in decades, with 96,000+ suspected cases and ~2,400 deaths over the last year—including ~5,000 cases in conflict-riven Darfur, where people in overcrowded camps around besieged El Fasher are “highly vulnerable” to the disease, per UNICEF via ReliefWeb.  

• And the disease is now spreading in neighboring Chad, where Sudanese refugees have fled. So far, cholera has killed 63 people there and infected 938, reports Africanews. 

Related: Sudan: ‘Devastating tragedy’ for children in El Fasher after 500 days of siege – UN News  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES FOREIGN AID CUTS The Cost of USAID Liquidation   
As USAID-funded projects and organizations shut down worldwide, they are being forced to rapidly offload millions of dollars’ worth of equipment—including cars, mosquito nets, textbooks, generators, printers, phones, mobile health clinics, and more.     Haste and waste: Aid workers, who say they have had little to no guidance from U.S. leadership about what to do with such supplies, have scrambled to sell, donate, or store equipment.  

• But the scale and pace of the shutdowns mean much equipment is handed off without proper documentation—or is simply being abandoned.  

• Tons of food, antibiotics, contraceptives, and vaccine doses are expiring and being incinerated.  

The cost: The chaotic shutdown may cost taxpayers $6 billion annually “for an undetermined amount of time,” not including the sunk cost of wasted goods.    The Atlantic (gift link)    Related:

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

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

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

The high cost of donor withdrawal: implications for tuberculosis progress – The Lancet Global Health (commentary)  

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

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

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

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

 So sweet—especially for mammals otherwise known as great false vampire bats. 

The New York Times (gift link)  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS States are tracking ‘impostor nurses,’ a growing problem since the pandemic – The Washington Post (gift link)    Moderna’s latest COVID-19 vaccine is both approved and ‘made in Canada’ – Global News Canada     Blue states that sued kept most CDC grants, while red states feel brunt of Trump clawbacks – CNN     The CDC quietly scaled back a surveillance program for foodborne illnesses – NBC     How cats with dementia could help crack the Alzheimer’s puzzle – University of Edinburgh via ScienceDaily    Estimating the predictability of questionable open-access journals – Science    Whatever happened to ... the optimist who thinks games and music can change the world – NPR Goats and Soda  Issue No. 2779
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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

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96 Global Health NOW: How the CDC Was Immobilized as Measles Spread; Nigeria’s Pregnant Pause; and Lessons From Botswana on Eliminating Pediatric HIV View this email in your browser August 27, 2025 Forward Share Post KFF Health News How the CDC Was Immobilized as Measles Spread    As Texas faced the country’s worst measles outbreak in decades, state and local health officials seeking help from the CDC were met with little to no response—as scientists at the federal agency were hampered by new restrictions under the Trump administration, finds an investigative report by KFF Health News.     Hands tied: The report details interwoven crises, both in Texas, where health facilities became overwhelmed and misinformation surged; and within federal health agencies facing communications crackdowns, stalled reports, and staff and budget cuts.    Deadly delays: As the outbreak exploded, Texas officials heard from the CDC only after a child had died on Feb. 26.  

• Meanwhile, outbreaks spread to five U.S. states and Mexico, sickening 4,500+ and killing at least 16. 

The Quote: “All of us at CDC train for this moment, a massive outbreak,” said a CDC researcher. “All this training and then we weren’t allowed to do anything.” 
  Growing threat: Measles continues to spread nationwide, and childhood vaccination rates continue to decline.  

• Missouri’s kindergarten measles vaccination rate has fallen to 90%—below the 95% threshold needed for community immunity, reports the Missouri Independent.  

• Ohio’s kindergarten vaccination rates have reached a new low of 85.4%, per The Columbus Dispatch.  

Related:     Alabama announces first measles case of the year – CIDRAP    A 1990 Measles Outbreak Shows How the Disease Can Roar Back – The New York Times (gift link)   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   A roundworm infection discovered after a child’s sepsis death in Indonesia has heightened concerns about the prevalence of such infections—and their relationship to childhood stunting amid poverty and malnutrition. Asia News Network    In a key step toward a Chagas vaccine, researchers have isolated and produced neutralizing antibodies to two of the disease-causing parasite’s proteins, per research published early this month in Nature Communications. Medical Xpress 
Popular AI chatbots give inconsistent answers to queries about suicide, and their guardrails around suicide-related questions can be bypassed, finds a new study published in Psychiatric Services. Euronews     C-section deliveries in South Asia rose from 8.5% in 2005 to 21.5% in 2021, per an analysis published in The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia—leading researchers to call for policy measures including payment reforms and more regulation in private health care settings. The Economic Times  U.S. and Global Health Policy News WHO's Low- And Mid-Rank Staff at Risk in Face of Pressures to Preserve Costly Jobs at Top – Health Policy Watch  
Cut to the bone: The cost of ration cuts and delivery delays in Kenya's refugee camps – The New Humanitarian  
What USAID cuts mean for future mortality rates – Nature    RFK Jr. endorses push for religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates – The Washington Post (gift link)    Drowning prevention program comes to a halt at the CDC – NPR Shots    A Tuberculosis Lab Makes a Community Healthier, Science Stronger – Harvard Medical School   DATA POINT

1 in 4
————
People globally lack access to safe drinking water. —WHO, UNICEF
  MATERNAL HEALTH Nigeria’s Pregnant Pause    The loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID and the resurgence of the Boko Haram militant group in Nigeria have increased dangers for pregnant women in the country—which already has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. 

• 1 in 4 maternal deaths worldwide occurred in Nigeria in 2023. 

• 1 in 100 Nigerian women dies giving birth.  

Contributing factors:  

• A chronically underfunded health system and long distances to health care. 

• In areas like Borno state, rocked by Boko Haram attacks, health workers also report difficulty recruiting doctors. 

Major losses: Nigeria approved an emergency $200 million toward the country’s health budget, but family planning services expect cuts of almost 97% in 2025, leaving little support for pregnant women.     AP  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES INFECTIOUS DISEASES Lessons From Botswana on Eliminating Pediatric HIV    Botswana is the first African nation to secure the WHO’s Gold Tier certification for eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission: By 2023 just 1.2% of infants born in the country contracted HIV.    How did they do it? 

• Early adoption of the WHO’s Option B+ policy, offering lifelong antiretroviral therapy to all pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV.  

• Free maternity services with high antenatal care coverage and facility-based births, ensuring universal access. 

• High-quality lab services and repeat maternal testing to identify infections early and prevent vertical transmission.  

The country also devotes sustained government funding to HIV programs as part of the annual budget, uses digital health systems to drive universal antenatal care, and engages the community to tackle HIV stigma.    Nature  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS ‘It happened in seconds’: residents count the cost of deadly floods that have left Pakistan in crisis – The Guardian 

The status of drowning prevention and control in the region of the Americas – BMC Injury Epidemiology    ‘I was imprisoned for six months for being HIV-positive' – The Independent    EU approves Gilead's new injection for preventing HIV – Reuters    'My Kid, My Rules': Central Asia's Child Abuse Epidemic – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty    Generative AI model scans emergency notes to identify high-risk avian influenza exposures – News Medical    The Rise of Pronatalism in the U.S.: The Risks to Reproductive and Sexual Health Outcomes – O'Neill Institute - Georgetown University     Modern Dentistry Is a Microplastic Minefield – The Atlantic (gift link)    Scientists found the gene that makes Aussie skinks immune to deadly snake venom – University of Queensland via ScienceDaily  Issue No. 2778
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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

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96 Global Health NOW: The Increasing Threat of Extreme Heat; Vanishing Care for Congo’s Sexual Assault Victims; and The Lifesaving Power of Cash View this email in your browser August 26, 2025 Forward Share Post A laborer shields from the sun as he works on a construction site along the Garonne river during a heatwave. Bordeaux, France, July 1. Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty The Increasing Threat of Extreme Heat    Working—and even living—in extreme heat is taking an increasing toll on humans in the climate change era, per new reports. 
Workplace dangers:  

• More than 2.4 billion people face heat stress at work, per the International Labour Organization, Politico reports. 

• More than 22 million occupational injuries and nearly 19,000 deaths result from heat stress every year. 

• Frequent work in hot indoor and outdoor conditions is affecting normal kidney and neurological functions, according to a new WHO and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report. 

Help wanted: Extreme heat is forcing many workers to “adapt or die,” said the WMO’s Johan Stander at a news conference last week. 

• Unions in Europe are calling for regulations on maximum working temperatures, noting that heat-related deaths of workers have increased 42% since 2000. 

Accelerated aging beyond work: Enduring repeated heatwaves is making people age faster, per new research published in Nature Climate Change. 

• Researchers found a nine-day increase in the biological age of a person who lived through four more heatwave days within two years, The Guardian reports. The study followed nearly 25,000 people in Taiwan for 15 years.  

Related:    WHO warns of risks of extreme heat in the workplace – BBC         Croatia urged to strengthen protections for workers in extreme heat – Croatia Week      Billions at 'real' risk of extreme heat in the workplace, WHO says – Euronews  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Hundreds of Indonesian children received measles vaccinations yesterday in response to an outbreak that has caused 17 deaths and infected 2,000+ children in East Java province over the last eight months. AP    Botswana declared a public health emergency yesterday as clinics run out of medicines for conditions including hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and tuberculosis; the president, Duma Boko, said the national medical supply chain had failed and announced plans for an emergency distribution drive overseen by the military. Reuters    The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released updated clinical guidance late last week recommending maternal vaccination against COVID-19, influenza, and RSV—following the American Academy of Pediatrics in contradicting CDC recommendations that exclude COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy or in healthy children. CIDRAP    A lung from a genetically modified pig was transplanted into a person for the first time; the patient, a man in China, was brain dead, but the organ survived for nine days—marking a step toward clinical trials for xenotransplantation of lungs, considered the most difficult organ to transplant. Nature  U.S. and Global Health Policy News RFK Jr. May Roll Back Major Achievement Donald Trump Called 'Monumental'– Newsweek    At 16, he mediated a highjacking. Now he’s negotiating for the survival of HIV programmes  – Bhekisisa    Federal judge OKs Medicaid defunding of Maine's largest reproductive health care provider – Maine Morning Star     First Opinion: We surveyed hundreds of biomedical researchers about the instability in federal funding. Here’s what they said – STAT    On this food issue, RFK Jr., the industry and nutritionists agree – The Washington Post (gift link)  VIOLENCE Vanishing Care for Congo’s Sexual Assault Victims   Sexual violence survivors in the DRC have long struggled to access care—much less legal recourse.     Now, even the basic resources for victims are disappearing: 

• As Rwandan-backed rebel group M23 solidifies control in the eastern part of the DRC, camps have been dismantled and clinics and aid have been shut down. 

• And as USAID-funded medical care is terminated, victims increasingly have nowhere to turn.  

Rape remains pervasive in the region. Perpetrators are from all groups involved in the region’s long-running conflict—and very few face any kind of justice.  

• Adding to the crisis: Aid groups say attacks are growing more common against children. 

The New York Times (gift link) GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ROAD SAFETY The U.S.-Canada Crash Gap    Canada and the U.S. are both car-dependent countries. But the two have increasingly divergent road safety records, with car crash deaths far more common in the U.S. than in Canada.     By the numbers: U.S. road deaths rose 18% from 2010 to 2020, while Canada’s fell 22%, despite faster population growth in Canada, per a new collaborative study by U.S. and Canadian researchers.     Why? For starters, Canadians drive less due to denser cities and more public transit.  

• But that doesn’t account for the whole picture, since the U.S. sees more deaths per mile driven, especially involving pedestrians and cyclists. 

Other factors: Canada enforces stricter DUI laws, has widely deployed speed cameras, and limits truck speeds—all measures less common in the U.S.    Bloomberg CityLab  CHILD MORTALITY The Lifesaving Power of Cash    Researchers have identified a powerful tool to help reduce infant mortality in low- and middle-income countries: cash.     Dramatic outcomes: Giving $1,000 in no-strings-attached cash to 10,000 low-income families reduced infant mortality by 48%, and deaths of children under five by 45%, finds a large study conducted in rural Kenya and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research—a figure on par with health interventions like anti-malarials and vaccines.     Cash = access: Researchers say the intervention’s effects played an especially critical role in reducing deaths during birth and in the few weeks after, improving access to hospital births and antenatal care.    NPR Goats and Soda   OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Gaza: UN calls for probe following deadly strikes on Nasser Hospital – UN News  
Mississippi Declares a Public Health Emergency Over Infant Deaths - Time Magazine – TIME    Climate Change Likely to Expand the Range of an Asian Bat and the Deadly Disease it Carries – Inside Climate News     Cities Move Away From Strategies That Make Drug Use Safer – The New York Times (gift link)    Using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children’s autism and ADHD risk – Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health     Common painkillers like Advil and Tylenol supercharge antibiotic resistance – University of South Australia via ScienceDaily    Whatever happened to ... the race to cure HIV? There's promising news – NPR    AI-generated scientific hypotheses lag human ones when put to the test – Science  Issue No. 2777
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: Gaza’s Cascading Infections Crisis; An Invisible Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa; and How Alpha-gal Is Altering Diets View this email in your browser August 25, 2025 Forward Share Post Palestinians injured by Israeli fire while waiting for food aid in Rafah receive medical treatment at Nasser Hospital. Khan Yunis, Gaza, August 20. Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Gaza’s Cascading Infections Crisis
Severe bacterial infections are surging at Gaza health facilities as doctors face an influx of patients amid dire shortages of basic medical, sanitation, and food supplies, reports The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.   
Resistance rampant: As people with traumatic injuries wait for care at Gaza’s overwhelmed Nasser Medical Complex, doctors report that 50–60% of patients develop post-surgery infections.  

• And a study published August 12 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found that nearly half of 1,300 patients at Al-Ahli hospital had infections resistant to multiple antibiotics between Nov. 2023 and Aug. 2024—numbers believed to have worsened since. 

‘Flying blind’: With no lab testing and basic supplies exhausted, physicians say they are unable to identify bacteria or choose effective treatments.  

• Overcrowding has created ideal conditions for cross-infection, and wounds have been infested with flies and maggots as even last-resort anti-infection remedies like vinegar run out. 

Famine declared: The spiraling crisis has been compounded by hunger, as famine has been officially confirmed in Gaza City, per a report by the global hunger monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification—and is projected to spread amid conditions “characterized by starvation, destitution and death,” reports The Washington Post (gift link).     The Quote: “As this Famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed. … The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading,” the report states.    Related:     Famine in Gaza: ‘A failure of humanity itself’, says UN chief – UN News      International hunger watchdog faces political attacks over Gaza famine reports – Science     Famine is declared in Gaza: What does it take to make this pronouncement? – NPR Goats and Soda     Driven by hunger in Gaza, amputees are part of the collateral damage – UN News   GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners

 

Somalia recorded 1,600+ diphtheria cases in 2025, including 87 deaths—a near doubling of its 838 cases in 2024, which saw 56 deaths; health officials attribute the rise to the unavailability of vaccines and closure of health clinics amid international funding cuts by the U.S. and others. The Eastleigh Voice     Burkina Faso’s junta expelled the country’s top UN representative, Carol Flore-Smereczniak, last week over a March UN report documenting 2,483 grave violations against children in the country, including killings, kidnappings, and the recruitment of child soldiers between July 2002 and June 2024. Human Rights Watch 

U.S. gun injury hospitalizations are up to 20X more likely for children living in disadvantaged neighborhoods than for children in the wealthiest areas, according to a study in Pediatrics examining hospital discharge and Childhood Opportunity Index data from Maryland, Wisconsin, New York, and Florida. EurekAlert! (news release) 

Poor countries pay more for essential drugs and have less availability of those drugs than wealthier countries—even after adjusting for purchasing power, per a JAMA Health Forum study of 87 high-, middle-, and low-income countries led by Brown University. CIDRAP  U.S. and Global Health Policy News South Africa’s most vulnerable struggle to find HIV medication after US aid cuts – AP    RFK Jr demanded a vaccine study be retracted — the journal said no – Nature    Covid Vaccine Opponent Tapped to Lead Federal Review Team – The New York Times (gift link)    Trump's widening war on gender-affirming care – Axios    Trump’s global health cuts upend CDC’s malaria work – Politico  DATA POINT

600 million
———————  
People screened for disease at Chinese ports over the last five years; Chinese customs officials reportedly detected 180,000+ cases of unspecified infectious disease as the country maintains its strict COVID-era entry protocols. —Reuters  CANCER An Invisible Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa    Lung cancer mortality rates appear low in sub-Saharan Africa—but that itself is a red flag, experts warn. In reality, the world’s most deadly cancer is severely undercounted and misdiagnosed there.     Why? Experts point to a range of reasons, including:  

• Lack of screening 

• Misdiagnoses of tuberculosis  

• Lack of global health funding for NCDs 

The undercounting creates a catch-22, say doctors: Systemic undercounting yields inaccurate data that allows governments to ignore the disease. If the disease is not seen as a crisis, it will not be given resources to improve screening and treatment. But resources are needed to prove it is a crisis.    The reality: Africa’s cancer burden is expected to climb 2X+ by 2050, especially as smoking rates skyrocket across sub-Saharan Africa.     NPR Goats and Soda    Related: Help is growing for the heavy emotional toll cancer takes on young men – NPR  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES TICKBORNE DISEASES How Alpha-gal Is Altering Diets  

 

The rise of lone star ticks on Martha’s Vineyard has led to a major rise in food allergies—and is providing a preview of how the rise of tickborne diseases may alter future eating habits.    Rising cases: Alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to meat and dairy caused by lone star tick bites, is rapidly increasing on Martha’s Vineyard. 

• In 2023, the local hospital logged 523 positive cases out of 1,254 tests in 2023—up from just two in 2020. 

Shifting cuisine: The allergy is pushing many in the foodie-famed community toward plant-based diets, with markets and restaurants increasingly offering “alpha-gal friendly” fare.  
The New York Times (gift link)   OPPORTUNITY The seventh International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) will be held November 3-6, 2025 in Bogotá, Colombia, at the Ágora Bogotá Convention Center, with pre-conferences, side events, and site visits starting November 1.

• ICFP 2025 will unite leaders, advocates, and innovators from across the sexual and reproductive health and rights community to exchange ideas, forge partnerships, and drive progress toward achieving and safeguarding SRHR for all.


• Save with early bird registration rates through September 4, 2025!

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER QUICK HITS Afghanistan's Fragile Health System Buckles Under Surge Of Deportees From Iran And Pakistan – Health Policy Watch  
The loneliest continent: epidemic of social isolation hits Africans as western culture spreads – The Guardian    Measles Takes Root in Mexico – Think Global Health 
Rubella eliminated as a public health problem in Nepal: WHO – UN News 

Photos: The perilous lives of miners in South Africa's abandoned mines – NPR Goats and Soda 
A California Resident Tests Positive for Plague. What to Know About the Disease – TIME 
DNDi wins prestigious Japan prize for medical services – The Star 
The potential key to upgrading toothpaste? Sheep’s wool and human hair – The Washington Post (gift link)  Issue No. 2776
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 Surgery Unit Imperiled; A New World, Crises, and Opportunities Ahead of World Mosquito Day; and Out of Hibernation View this email in your browser August 14, 2025 Forward Share Post Volodymyr Horbachevskyi, a hospital medical director, looks into the window of an underground operating room where surgeons labor despite nearby Russian artillery fire on May 28 in Kherson, Ukraine. Ivan Antypenko/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Global Surgery Unit Imperiled
A major UK-led initiative to improve and expand surgery worldwide may be shuttered by June 2026 due to projected UK government aid cuts—jeopardizing critical progress in regions where lack of surgical access leads to millions of preventable deaths every year. 

Background: The Global Surgery Unit (GSU), launched in 2017, comprises 40,000 surgeons in 120 countries who conduct large-scale trials and tailor country-specific protocols to address surgical access, infection prevention, and antimicrobial resistance. 

• It has led to landmark studies like the CHEETAH trial, which improved infection prevention worldwide through improved sanitation, and the EAGLE trial which advanced colorectal surgery outcomes.

The deep need for surgery: 4 million+ people die every year from conditions that could be treated by surgery; and such medical issues—including obstetric problems, trauma wounds, infections, and blindness—make up ~28% of the global disease burden.   

• “Global surgical care is probably the greatest world health challenge today and the one that we are currently failing to meet,” said Dion Morton, GSU co-lead. 

Looming cuts: The UK’s Labour party has decided to cut its overseas aid budget by ~£6 billion, including a 4% drop in health-related spending. 

The Telegraph  EDITOR'S NOTE No GHN Next Week: See You August 25!
GHN will be taking our annual summer publishing pause next week (August 18–21) to rest and recharge—but, as promised, we’ve collected some suggestions of long reads and books to tide you over—courtesy of a handful of GHN super readers. We asked, and you did not disappoint! Check them out at the end of this newsletter, just above the Quick Hits.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll be back on Monday, August 25! —Dayna GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Atrocities at Myanmar’s detention facilities include “systematic torture” and sexual assault, UN-mandated independent investigators have documented in an annual report; the violence at the military-run facilities has intensified nationwide, and includes beatings, electric shocks, strangulations, and gang rape. UN News

Sudan launched a cholera vaccination campaign in Khartoum in an effort to stem a rapidly spreading outbreak; 83,000+ cholera cases and 2,100+ deaths have been reported amidst the country’s civil war and health care system collapse. AP

The only COVID-19 vaccine for all children aged six months to four years may not receive reauthorization from the FDA, CDC emails reveal; the removal of the Pfizer vaccine could limit available vaccine supplies for the youngest children. CIDRAP

Quitting smoking is linked to 30% greater odds of recovery from other substance use disorders, finds a study published in JAMA Psychiatry that followed 2,600+ people over four years. MedPage Today U.S. and Global Health Policy News Trump Administration Scraps Research Into Health Disparities – The New York Times (gift link)

Trump’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood threatens US healthcare system, study suggests – The Guardian

How HIV funding cuts are undermining years of progress in Zimbabwe – Médecins Sans Frontières

President Trump can continue to withhold billions in foreign aid, court rules ​​– NPR Goats and Soda

Judge tells NSF to reinstate suspended UCLA grants – Science

Before Trump's efforts to make kids healthier, there was Michelle Obama –The 19th GHN EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY A resting female Aedes aegypti mosquito. CDC/ Amy E. Lockwood, MS World Mosquito Day 2025: A New World, Crises, and Opportunities
Since 1897, when Ronald Ross discovered that malaria is transmitted by the “dapple-winged mosquito” and not miasmatic “bad air,” efforts against the Anopheles malaria vectors have saved millions of lives—albeit with recent gains threatened due to U.S. foreign aid cuts.
 
And now, another type of mosquito—Aedes aegypti, the vector for dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika—is rapidly expanding, eclipsing Anopheles as our greatest mosquito challenge, writes Michael B. Macdonald in a commentary ahead of World Mosquito Day (August 20).
 
While malaria still packs a major punch (~263 million malaria cases and 597,000 malaria deaths in 2023, per the WHO)—Aedes mosquitoes exact a heavy, and growing, toll:

• 6.5 million+ dengue cases and 7,300 global deaths in 2023


• 14 million dengue cases and 10,000 deaths in 2024

Yet, unlike malaria, Aedes-borne viruses attract little funding—with no Global Fund, no Presidential Initiative, and very little support from private foundations.
 
Cause for optimism: Better dengue surveillance, prevention, treatment, case management, and control efforts (recently described in an Asia Dengue Voice and Action Policy Working Group paper, Unlocking Progress: Dengue Policies and Opportunities in Asia).
 
A key need: An all-society, bottom-up approach to guide malaria and dengue control efforts, led by a new generation of public health field entomologists grounded in new technologies as well as ecology, biology, and community engagement.

Related:

Pacific Islands race to contain 'largest dengue fever outbreak in a decade', as disease kills 18 people – ABC Australia
 
WHO recommends spatial emanators for malaria vector control and prequalifies first two products – WHO
 

Malaria control in emergencies: field manual – WHO

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL MACDONALD GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES VIOLENCE Deadly Virality    Violence and femicide, such as the 2023 murder of Nizama Hecimovic, a Bosnian woman whose death was livestreamed, are part of an increasing trend of viral brutality against women.

Weaponizing online content to intimidate or silence women has become increasingly common, especially in areas like Afghanistan, where women’s rights are restricted.

• 73% of Gen Z social media users report seeing misogynistic media online.

An algorithmic issue: Platforms like Meta have AI and human moderators capable of removing violent content. Yet this content often remains due to algorithms that prioritize engagement. 
 
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Out of Hibernation 
Summer’s end is always a rude awakening—or several rude awakenings, depending on how many times you hit snooze. 

Slightly less rude, infinitely more cute, and much too squirrely to be snoozed: The early birds (and mammals) who have taken the wake-up task into their own claws, including: 

• The Brazilian cockatiel who recently went viral for his spot-on impression of an iPhone alarm tune, per Newsweek. 


• Chico the rooster, who takes the Sisyphean quest of waking a teen in very decisive stride, via PetHelpful.


• The five (!!!!!) golden retrievers who smother their sleeping person in snuggles and a baffling number of shoes, per Parade Pets. 

While GHN will be off next week, its own faithful, furry wake-up squad (Wolfie, Anoushka, and Greta), will be back on duty August 25. SUMMER READING RECS Tips from GHN Readers
Thanks to all the GHN readers who shared these excellent suggestions!
 
Dismissed: Tackling the Biases that Undermine Our Health Care by Angela Marshall
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright
—Courtesy of Hannah Schoon, Utah, USA
 
The Education of an Idealist and A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, both by Samantha Power
—Courtesy of Lorina McAdam, Auradou, France
 
Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life by John Kaag
—Courtesy of Lorenn Walker, Waialu, Hawaii, USA

Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
—Courtesy of Michael Kowolik, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
 
Escape on the Pearl: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad by Mary Kay Ricks
—Courtesy of Stephan Gilbert, Bowie, Maryland, USA
 
Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
—Courtesy of Caitlin Lavigne, Philadelphia, USA

And, to close us out, here are a few audio books on the free app Libby, suggested by Peter Kilmarx, of Bethesda, Maryland, USA: 
 
On Call by Tony Fauci (He narrates the book with his Brooklyn accent, which is wonderful. “Go figure.”)
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

Happy reading, all! We'll see you on Monday, August 25. QUICK HITS Gaza Malnutrition Deaths Rise, says WHO, while Israeli Hostage Mothers Make Fresh Appeal to ICRC – Health Policy Watch

Multidrug-resistant bacteria amid health-system collapse in Gaza – The Lancet (commentary)

Mines, Memory, and Migration on Bosnia’s Perilous Border – Inkstick

Unsafe and substandard. Is that what public healthcare in SA looks like? – Bhekisisa

Racial bias in clinician assessment of patient credibility: Evidence from electronic health records – PLOS One

In Nigeria, Male Victims of Abuse Face Stigma and Silence – Passblue

How to thrive as a Latin American researcher abroad – Nature Issue No. 2775
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: Renewed Outrage Over FGM in The Gambia; Burma’s Junta Restricts ART Access; and South Sudan’s Fragile Psychological Care System View this email in your browser August 13, 2025 Forward Share Post Protesters hold placards outside the National Assembly in Banjul, Gambia, while lawmakers inside debated a bill seeking to lift the ban on FGM. March 18, 2024. Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP via Getty Renewed Outrage Over FGM in The Gambia
A 1-month-old girl in Gambia died from severe bleeding after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM), sparking national and international outrage about the practice, reports The Telegraph. 

Details: The baby girl was pronounced dead upon arrival at a hospital in Banjul after being “allegedly subjected to circumcision,” per France24. Two women have been arrested in connection with the case.

Background: FGM—the cultural practice of deliberately removing external female genitalia to preserve so-called “purity”—has been banned in Gambia since 2015, but enforcement remains weak. 

• FGM rates in Gambia are among the highest in the world, with 73% of Gambian women and girls having undergone the practice—many before age 6, per UNICEF.

Progress threatened: And leaders in the country have continued efforts to overturn the ban over the past year, sparking condemnation from activists: 

• “Culture is no excuse, tradition is no shield, this is violence, pure and simple,” said Gambian advocacy organization Women In Leadership and Liberation.

Global impact: FGM affects millions worldwide—including 42 million+ girls in Eastern and Southern Africa, where rates are highest, finds a new report from UNICEF. 

• Experts warn that more girls may die without stronger enforcement and international support—but that support has flagged as cuts to global aid have directly hit FGM-prevention programs. 

EDITOR'S NOTE GHN’s Summer Break
We’ll be taking a weeklong publishing pause next week (August 18–21) to give our team a chance to rest and gear up for the start of the school year.

Tomorrow, we’ll share some suggestions of long reads and books to tide you over. Have you read (or listened to) any interesting books lately? If you have a good one to share with the GHN community, we’d love to hear from you—please send me your suggestions before Thursday morning! 

As always, thanks for reading. —Dayna GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Women and girls are disproportionately affected by near-famine conditions in several parts of Sudan, where they make up about half of the population in need, per UN Women, which also found that female-headed households are 3X times more likely to be food-insecure than male-led households. IPS

Wildfires in Greece have spread as the region endures a staggering heatwave; 152+ new fires have broken out across the country in the last 24 hours alone, prompting thousands of evacuations. BBC

U.S. drinking rates have fallen to a record low of 54%; the shift comes as the majority of Americans say for the first time that drinking one or two drinks a day is bad for one’s health. Gallup

A parasitic worm can suppress pain signals in the human body, allowing it to invade without triggering the immune system, per new research published in The Journal of Immunology; the findings about the worm, Schistosoma mansoni, and its tactics for blocking neural pathways could lead to breakthroughs in pain management. American Association of Immunologists Inc via ScienceDaily U.S. and Global Health Policy News Gavin Yamey and Chris Beyrer: The dismantling of the U.S. vaccine regulatory framework – Vaccine (commentary)

Ghana approves breakthrough malaria drug for babies — but research is ‘on ice’ amid US funding cuts – PRI

Losing protection: The United States helped beat back malaria in Guinea. Now, the disease is set to soar – Science

MAGA rails against "pothead" culture as Trump weighs weed reform – Axios HIV/AIDS Burma’s Junta Restricts ART Access
The junta-run health ministry in Burma is restricting the distribution of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for people with HIV/AIDS, ending NGO involvement and further limiting treatment access amid the country’s ongoing civil war. 

Background: Previously, ART was widely distributed to Burma’s ~280,000 HIV-positive residents through NGOs. 

• The junta said the sudden clampdown is a response to resistance-led seizure of vehicles transporting ART medicine. 

Immediate impact: The new policy will severely limit access to the medication in resistance-controlled areas.

• And it will force patients to receive care only in government-controlled hospitals—jeopardizing privacy and potentially leading to overcrowded facilities. 

The Irrawaddy

Related: Fiji: Why a tropical paradise has the world’s fastest growing HIV epidemic – The Telegraph GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MENTAL HEALTH South Sudan’s Fragile Psychological Care System
As renewed violence and displacement in South Sudan exacerbate mental health crises across the country, funding shortfalls are endangering the few mental health resources in place, advocates say. 

Gaps in care: “Mental health issues are a huge obstacle to the development of South Sudan,” said Jacopo Rovarini, an official with Amref Health Africa—which found that over a third of people screened showed psychological distress or mental health disorders.

• The country has one of Africa’s highest suicide rates, with internally displaced people most affected.

Few and shrinking resources: The few mental health services that exist are almost totally reliant on foreign aid—and as more countries announce funding cuts, those services are imperiled.  

AP OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS In Darfur, Sudan, kidnapping is now a weapon of war – The Christian Science Monitor

Doctors Step Up Against the Climate Health Emergency – Medscape

FDA grants priority review for new oral gonorrhea antibiotic – CIDRAP

I just packed Narcan for my daughter’s dorm room. Public health made it possible – STAT (commentary)

How lithium went from 7Up to treatment for mental illness — and maybe Alzheimer’s – The Washington Post (gift link)

As Trust in Public Health Craters, Idaho Charts a New Path – Undark

How a Jamaican student invented a self-disinfecting door handle for hospitals: ‘Design that fits reality’ – The Guardian

Cleaner kitchens, healthier lives: Ghana’s cookstove revolution gains ground – RFI Issue No. 2774
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: U.S. FDA’s Slipshod Protection for Generics; Sierra Leone’s ‘Red Zone’; and The Push for Phone-Free Schools View this email in your browser August 12, 2025 Forward Share Post Signage is displayed at the Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. headquarters in Mumbai, India. May 2, 2019. Kanishka Sonthalia/Bloomberg via Getty U.S. FDA’s Slipshod Protection for Generics
After eight years of warning an Indian pharmaceutical company it was grossly violating manufacturing standards, the U.S. FDA finally barred Sun Pharma from sending its drugs to the U.S. in 2022, per a must-read ProPublica investigation.

But: The FDA exempted more than a dozen drugs, despite the risks to U.S. patients.
 
The problems:

• Basic protocols to prevent contamination of injectable drugs weren’t followed.


• Sun failed to determine whether “unknown impurities” in meds were toxic.


• Buckets collected water dripping from the ceiling in a sterile part of the factory.

Nearly 11 years after the initial inspection, FDA inspectors found the same issues, despite Sun officials’ claims that they had fixed the problems.

FDA falls short: The agency didn’t explicitly warn U.S. patients about the risks and allowed the drugs into the U.S.

Worse still: 20+ other problematic factories received exemptions similar to Sun’s, allowing them to ship 150 drugs, including antibiotics and chemotherapy treatments.

The Quote: “The people on the other end have faith that the products they are taking are safe and effective,” a senior FDA employee said. “I think of the faces. I think of my parents. … I think of the consumers who are basically taking these drugs on blind faith.”

Related: The FDA Let Substandard Factories Ship These Medications to the U.S. – ProPublica GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
UK researchers discovered antibodies that appear to protect children in The Gambia against Strep A (Streptococcus pyogenes) infection, which kills 500,000 a year, mostly in LMICs; the research, published in Nature Medicine, provides insights into immunity that could inform the development of a new vaccine. The Telegraph 

India’s top court ordered officials in Delhi to get all stray dogs off the streets and into animal shelters over rabies concerns; India, which accounts for 36% of the global rabies death toll, per the WHO, has millions of stray dogs. BBC

The Annals of Internal Medicine rejected a call from some readers and the U.S. health secretary RFK, Jr. to retract a Danish study published in July that found that aluminum salts in vaccines did not raise the risk of autism, asthma, and other disorders in children; the journal’s editor said there is no evidence of serious errors or scientific misconduct. MedPage Today

An overhaul of UK road safety laws this fall could mandate eye tests for older drivers, lower the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers, and impose harsher penalties for uninsured drivers and rejecting seatbelts; last year, UK traffic incidents killed 1,633 people and seriously injured ~28,000. The Guardian U.S. and Global Health Policy News Vaccine sceptics appointed to advise Italian government on immunisation – The BMJ

Canada plans a 15% budget cut. Scientists are alarmed – Science

Trump Orders State Department to Overlook International Human Rights Abuses – The Intercept

Kennedy's Next Target: the Federal Vaccine Court – The New York Times (gift link)

Exclusive: NIH ponders overhauling HIV budget to capitalize on prevention breakthrough – Science

Trump's Foreign Aid Cuts Are Ruining Ethiopia's Progress on Maternal Mortality – Jezebel MPOX Sierra Leone’s ‘Red Zone’ 
Sierra Leone has become home to the worst African outbreak of mpox, with 5,000+ cases and 47 deaths reported since the first case was reported at the end of 2024. 

• The cases have spanned all demographic groups, and included children—leading experts to fear that the virus’s reach could expand.   

Shifting strategies: The country is finally starting to curb infections since a major vaccination campaign, and after activating more beds at hospitals and treatment centers in “red zones”—isolation wards where mpox patients are treated. 

• Previously, officials had encouraged infected patients to isolate at home—a strategy that failed, say health workers. 

Ongoing obstacles: Misinformation, stigma, and overcrowding remain challenges, and widespread vaccination will be critical to stemming chains of transmission, health workers say. 
The Telegraph

Related: Neonatal mpox in Nigeria: a case of transplacental or postnatal transmission – BMC Infectious Diseases DATA POINT

$11.44 billion
————————
The annual economic burden of chronic Chagas disease in Brazil; the annual direct medical costs represent around 11% of the Ministry of Health budget. —The Lancet
  ADOLESCENT HEALTH The Push for Phone-Free Schools
A fast-growing network of American parents is seeking to curb the influence of smartphones and social media on their children’s health—and they are starting with schools.  

Bans and “bell-to-bell” policies: Much parent-led advocacy so far has focused on making schools smartphone-free environments. Once highly unpopular, such bans are quickly gaining traction:

• 74% of U.S. adults now support preventing students from using their phones during class, while 44% support all-day bans, per a Pew Research Center study from July.


• 37 states and D.C. have passed laws limiting classroom phone use, with about half passing all-day bans.

Just the beginning: “We’ve moved from arguing about whether there was a problem to arguing about what the solutions are,” said Josh Golin, executive director of child advocacy organization Fairplay.

TIME

Related: Vermont just became the latest state to ban cellphones in the classroom. What does that mean for schools? – VTDigger OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Public health officials face grim new reality after CDC shooting – CIDRAP

Influencers criticize birth control and push 'natural' methods. Here's what to know – NPR 

Washington state malaria case prompts further study of region's mosquitoes – Anchorage Daily News

Why Young Children May Not Get Covid Shots This Fall – The New York Times (gift link)

Cancer Super-Survivors May Hold Keys to New Treatments – Undark

The anti-sunscreen movement and what to know about its claims – The Washington Post (gift link) 

Americans Are All In on Cow-Based Wellness – The Atlantic (gift link)

All Hail the Humble Speed Hump – Bloomberg CityLab Issue No. 2773
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: CDC Attack Reflects Rising Hostilities; Health Tracking: Instructive or Invasive?; and Dispatches from ‘Molar City’ View this email in your browser August 11, 2025 Forward Share Post Law enforcement officers responding to the shooting near the CDC Global Headquarters in Atlanta. August 8. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty CDC Attack a ‘Dire Reflection’ of Rising Hostilities 
The shooting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday is being seen as an escalation of aggression against health workers—and particularly against the CDC—since the COVID-19 pandemic, reports The New York Times (gift link). 

• “It is a dire reflection of ever-escalating threats public health workers face in a climate increasingly shaped by misinformation, politicization, and inflammatory rhetoric,” wrote former U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams in a commentary for STAT, in which he also criticized HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for taking 18 hours to issue a public statement about the attack. 

Details: Investigators say the gunman blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his mental health struggles, reports the AP. 

• The attack killed a police officer on duty and damaged four buildings at the campus—where ~9,000 CDC workers are based and where labs of the highest biosecurity levels are housed. 


• Employees huddled in place for hours—as did 90 children at the daycare on campus. 

Larger pattern of violence: CDC workers told The Atlantic (gift link) the attack is unsurprising given ever-increasing vilification from the public and public officials. 

• Nearly a third of state and local public health workers reported facing workplace violence in a 2021 survey.

Calls for security and support: The union that represents the CDC demanded stronger safety measures and that federal officials provide a “clear and unequivocal stance” denouncing vaccine disinformation to protect health workers and rebuild trust in science, reports The Guardian. GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Dengue fatalities and cases are spiking in Bangladesh ahead of the disease’s peak season, with 101 deaths and 24,183 cases reported so far this year straining the health system; health officials are urging people to use mosquito repellents, sleep under nets, and eliminate stagnant water where mosquitoes breed. Radio New Zealand

Routine flu vaccines for children and adults were quietly endorsed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month per a backdated notice on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations page, despite Kennedy’s previous calls for changes to the flu vaccine. MedPage Today

Women who have been stalked or who have obtained a restraining order were more likely to later experience a heart attack or stroke compared to those who did not, finds a new study published in Circulation, which said such experiences warrant routine medical consideration alongside traditional risk factors. Medical Xpress

Kenya has officially eliminated sleeping sickness, also known as human African trypanosomiasis, the WHO confirmed last Friday—making Kenya the 10th country to eliminate the vector-borne disease caused by the blood parasite Trypanosoma brucei. WHO (news release) U.S. and Global Health Policy News 'We're just over the moon!' Good news for factories that make food for malnourished kids – NPR
Trump executive order gives politicians control over all federal grants, alarming researchers – AP 

Trump administration wants to defund watchdog groups for Navajo mental health – STAT

“We Want to Save This Investment”: Advocates Race to Secure Maternal Health Funding Before It Runs Out – ProPublica

Top vaccine regulator returns to FDA after recent firing – Politico

Trump has said abortion is a state issue. His judicial picks could shape it nationally for decades – AP DATA Federal Health Tracking System: Instructive or Invasive?  
The Trump administration announced the creation of a centralized health database late last month, saying the collaboration with Big Tech, health systems, and insurers will consolidate health records for use across various platforms and apps. 

Details: The database would be maintained through a hub with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and draw data from a range of medical records and health trackers. The goal is to launch in 2026. 

• Patients must opt in to have their records and data shared. 


• AI and apps would drive “personalized advice” on nutrition and activity based on collected data.

Privacy concerns: Ethicists and patient advocates say such sensitive patient information may not be adequately protected and could be easily misused. 

AP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES DENTAL CARE Dispatches from ‘Molar City’
Los Algodones, Mexico, is home to ~5,500 residents—and 1,000+ dentists. 

• Nicknamed “Molar City,” the town has become known for its sprawling network of dental clinics, which draw over a million Americans seeking affordable dental care. 

Filling a gap: Over half of Americans skip dental visits each year due to poor insurance coverage and untenable prices for what are often critical procedures. 

• A root canal in Molar City can cost less than one-fifth of what it would across the border 10 minutes away, making the town “part Lourdes and part Costco” for medical tourists, writes journalist Burkhard Bilger—who details his own quest pursuing dental care there alongside other hopeful, and sometimes desperate, patients.

The New Yorker CORRECTION Linked-out
In our Thursday newsletter, we linked to the wrong Guardian article for this quick hit. This is the correct link: Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn. 

We regret the error, and thank the GHN readers who pointed it out to us!  OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS A word is born — and critiqued: 'healthocide' – NPR Goats and Soda

Saudi Arabia Reports Eleven MERS Cases, Two Fatalities – Vax-Before-Travel

Sharp rise in Black youth suicide rates in California alarms mental health advocates – Los Angeles Wave

More women get Alzheimer's than men. It may not just be because they live longer – CBC 

Ivermectin's Potential in the Fight Against Malaria – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Red states lead push for MAHA soda bans – The Hill

Lessons for a Warming World From Kashmir’s Cooling Caves – Reasons to be Cheerful Issue No. 2772
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: HIV Patients ‘in Darkness’ as Aid Cuts Take Hold; Schools as Abortion Rights Battlegrounds; and The Brawl of the Wild View this email in your browser August 7, 2025 Forward Share Post Mosele Mothibi, 40, an unemployed textile factory worker, sits on her bed inside her one-room flat on July 4. Maseru, Lesotho. Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty HIV Patients ‘in Darkness’ as Aid Cuts Take Hold 
In the nearly eight months since the U.S. abruptly cut global aid funding, the fallout for HIV patients throughout Africa is widening as more people drop out of treatment and go without critical testing—and lose hope that such programs will be restored. 

In South Africa, thousands of vulnerable HIV patients are falling out of antiretroviral therapy after U.S.-funded clinics shuttered, reports The Telegraph—a potential harbinger of rising infections and deaths to come, advocates fear. 

• Clinics serving especially high-risk groups including sex workers, people who use drugs, and trans people closed suddenly, forcing patients to shift to public clinics.


• But a Cape Town audit found only 10 of 400 tracked patients made the switch.

In Lesotho, the sudden shutdown of the country’s Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission program left at-risk pregnant women without testing or counseling, reports the Pulitzer Center.

• Many women say they do not know their or their children’s HIV status—meaning that even if lifesaving preventative medications are available, they cannot access them.  


• “We are in darkness,” said Matebello Khoahli, an HIV-positive mother who fears for the life of her 23-month-old. 

Related: 

Elton John AIDS Foundation plugging gaps in HIV funding – The Lancet

The triple whammy: HIV, migration and climate change – Bhekisisa

ICYMI: U.S. Funding Cuts Stop Crucial HIV Research Work in Its Tracks – Global Health NOW GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
1,500+ Sudanese civilians may have been massacred in Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp during the RSF’s attack in April, per an investigation by The Guardian that found “repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions.” The Guardian

Replenishing lithium in the brain may protect against and even reverse Alzheimer’s disease, per a study published in Nature that found a specific type of lithium supplement reversed neurological changes and memory loss in mice. Nature

Indonesia will treat wounded Gazans at a medical facility on Galang Island in an initiative to provide medical care to 2,000 people from the enclave, who are expected to return to Gaza after treatment. Firstpost

The Maui and LA fires have taken an ongoing toll on residents’ health, per a series of studies published yesterday showing effects including lung damage, depression, suicide, overdose, and interruptions of care. AP DATA POINT

1.4 million
—————— 
  African women and girls denied essential care by the U.S.’s destruction of $9.7 million in contraceptives earmarked for DRC, Kenya, Mali, Tanzania, and Zambia; the supplies could have prevented ~174,000 unintended pregnancies and ~56,000 unsafe abortions, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation. —The Independent REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH Schools as Abortion Rights Battlegrounds
A growing number of American students taking sex education classes this fall will be required to watch videos of fetuses growing in the womb—a result of new “fetal development” laws passed in state legislatures nationwide. 

• Six states now require such videos to be shown in sex ed; nearly 4 million students will see them this fall. 


• 20+ states have proposed similar bills since 2023.

Background: Showing such videos in schools is a key part of anti-abortion group Live Action’s strategy to influence young people. 

• Its main tool: “Meet Baby Olivia,” a 3-minute video depicting the development of a fetus in utero, which has been frequently recommended in state legislation.


• But medical experts say the video is misleading about development and is emotionally manipulative rather than educational. 

Teen Vogue

ICYMI: What Do American Kids Learn About Sex? It Depends Who You Ask. – Global Health NOW GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CORRECTION We Botched a Link
In our U.S. and Global Health Policy news section yesterday, we linked a KFF Health News article to the wrong story. Here’s the correct link: Deep Staff Cuts at a Little-Known Federal Agency Pose Trouble for Droves of Local Health Programs. Thanks to multiple GHN readers who alerted us to the error!  ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION The Brawl of the Wild
Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word …

… unless it is one of the bone-rattling insults hurled by Adam Driver’s and Scarlett Johansson’s characters during their legendary meltdown in the divorce drama Marriage Story.

• The Oscar-nominated actors’ emotionally devastating (and memeworthy) spat is now a tool in USDA-supervised “wolf hazing”—a tactic deployed in Oregon to protect livestock without culling the endangered canines. 

Drive-ing wolves away: “Drone cowhands” detect wolves with thermal technology—then terrify them with Driver hollering, “How dare you compare me to my father!” at full blast via speakers. It’s unnervingly effective. 

• “I need the wolves to respond and know that, hey, humans are bad,” explained an Oregon-based USDA district supervisor.

Other (less therapy-inducing) options on the playlist: The sound of fireworks and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”

The Guardian QUICK HITS STDs are rampant in Mississippi. This one is now considered an epidemic. – WLBT Jackson 

With $1K in cash aid, he built a life-changing barbershop. Now cash aid is under fire ​​– NPR Goats and Soda

Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn – The Guardian

Anahí Ruderman: Feeding Community When Government Aid Runs Dry – Sapiens (commentary)

Americans get more than half their calories from ultra-processed foods, CDC report says – AP

Medical students must be able to voice ethical concerns during clinical rotations – STAT (commentary)

Giant virus with record-long tail discovered in Pacific Ocean – Science Issue No. 2771
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: China’s ‘Patriotic Public Health’ War on Chikungunya; HHS Halts mRNA Development; and Rural Romania Battles Vaccine Mistrust View this email in your browser August 6, 2025 Forward Share Post A worker sprays insecticide at a residential community on July 29, in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China. VCG via Getty China Fights Chikungunya with ‘Patriotic Public Health’
To fight a chikungunya outbreak that has sickened thousands, Chinese authorities have launched an all-out assault on mosquitoes—deploying soldiers “spraying clouds of disinfectant” and drones to track down their breeding grounds, and threatening fines for people who fail to disperse standing water, the AP reports.

• The virus, transmitted by the bites of infected mosquitoes, has infected ~8,000 people in China in four weeks, mostly around Foshan—marking the country’s largest outbreak since 2008, per The New York Times (gift link).


• While rarely fatal, the disease can cause fevers and excruciating pain.

The authorities have also launched a “patriotic public health campaign” that is unhappily reminiscent, for some, of the country’s strict measures against COVID-19.
 
The Quote: “It’s fundamentally no different from the Maoist-style public health campaigns. It involves the mass mobilization of the people. It’s targeting a particular threat to public health and potentially could lead to unintentional consequences,” says Yanzhong Huang, a Council on Foreign Relations senior global health fellow.

Related: What to know about chikungunya virus, as U.S. travel alerts issued – Axios GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   A gonorrhoea vaccination program has been launched in England as the country tries to reduce its soaring infection rates and curb the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant strains; gonorrhoea infections in the country reached a record ~85,000 cases in 2023. The Independent

Legionnaires' disease has killed three people in a New York cluster that has sickened ~70 people after it emerged in Harlem last week. ABC7 New York 

Raw milk consumption has been linked to 21 people in Florida being sickened by E. coli and campylobacter bacteria, including six children under the age of 10 and seven people who were hospitalized, per Florida officials who warned of the risks of drinking unpasteurized milk. CBS

E. coli can evolve antibiotic-resistance during treatment, per a new study published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology, which tracked in real time how the bacteria quickly developed a mechanism to escape a drug’s effects by amplifying a resistance gene it already carried. Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine U.S. and Global Health Policy News Deep Staff Cuts at a Little-Known Federal Agency Pose Trouble for Droves of Local Health Programs – KFF Health News Thanks for the tip, Chiara Jaffe! 

Has NSF defied a court order by suspending 300 UCLA grants? – Science

Trump administration violated impoundment law by canceling NIH grants, slowing new awards, GAO finds – STAT

Does SA need a COVID-like ministerial advisory committee to deal with HIV funding cuts? – Bhekisisa

CDC to disburse delayed funds for fighting fentanyl and more, staffers say – NPR Shots

Why Trump is targeting these programs that help keep drug users alive – The Washington Post

The GOP is choosing pesticides over the MAHA moms – Bloomberg RESEARCH HHS Pulls the Plug on mRNA Development
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced yesterday that HHS will cancel 22 federally funded mRNA vaccine development projects worth $500 million—a move infectious disease specialists and biosecurity experts warned was “dangerous” and “short-sighted,” reports the AP.

Details: The contracts were between the federal emergency preparedness agency, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to develop vaccines for respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu—building off the breakthroughs credited with slowing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and saving millions of lives, reports Axios. 

• In a statement, Kennedy claimed the mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections,” and that funding will shift to “safer, broader” platforms like whole-virus vaccines.


• Some late-stage contracts will continue, but no new federal funding will support mRNA vaccine development. 


• The HHS said “other uses of mRNA technology within the department are not impacted by this announcement.”

Public health alarm: Infectious disease researchers said mRNA technology has proven to be safe and effective—and that abandoning the contracts weakens critical biodefense capabilities for public health emergencies. 

• “We’re weakening critical countermeasures at the very moment that global health risks are intensifying,” former BARDA director Rick Bright told STAT. 

Avian flu airborne? The decision is especially worrisome as concerns over avian flu persist: In a new preprint study, scientists found live virus in the air of milking facilities, per The New York Times (gift link). GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES MEASLES Battling Vaccine Mistrust in Rural Romania
Amid Europe’s worst measles outbreak in 25 years, Romania is the region's most affected country, with around 13,000 of the ~18,000 cases in the European Economic Area registered between June 2024 and May 2025.

• Romania has the EU’s lowest vaccination rate (62 %), falling short of the 95% the WHO says is needed for effective disease control. 

Doctors are battling deep vaccine mistrust in rural Romanian communities, where misconceptions linking vaccines to autism persist, access to health care is limited, and educational outreach is weak.
 
Factors behind the crisis: poverty, an underfunded medical system, brain drain of health workers, and anti-vaccine rhetoric amplified by far‑right politicians and misinformation during the COVID‑19 pandemic. 

AFP via France24 OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS ‘Flesh-Eating’ Bacteria Cases Are on the Rise Along the Gulf Coast – TIME

Pregnant people in rural parts of the country are running out of places to give birth – The 19th

Respiratory viral infections awaken metastatic breast cancer cells in lungs – Nature

As influencers spread ‘toxic’ claims, what is the truth about sunscreen? – The Guardian

Many studies of air-cleaning tech say they curb viral spread, but new review raises questions – CIDRAP

Scientific fraud has become an ‘industry,’ alarming analysis finds – Science

Kids in Pennsylvania Are Breathing (Much) Easier After a Coal Plant Shuttered – Inside Climate News Issue No. 2770
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 Troubled Fight Against Polio; Plastics: A ‘Grave, Growing’ Danger; and Wartime Russia is Losing the Battle Against HIV View this email in your browser August 5, 2025 Forward Share Post A health worker administers polio drops to schoolchildren for vaccination during a door-to-door poliovirus eradication campaign. Lahore, Pakistan, April 21. Arif Ali/AFP via Getty The Troubled Fight Against Polio
The WHO and its partners were close in 2021 to scoring a huge win against polio. They recorded just five cases of the natural virus that year. But the poliovirus eluded vaccination efforts and caused 99 cases last year.
 
In a deeply reported investigation, the AP blames misinformation, mismanagement, a flawed strategy, and the oral vaccine.
 
Challenges: Vaccinating children in Afghanistan and Pakistan (the only countries with uninterrupted polio transmission) is a difficult proposition.

• Some religious leaders tell people to avoid vaccinations, health systems are weak, and hundreds of vaccinators and security officers have been targeted and killed.

Wins: Global Polio Eradication Initiative officials note 3 billion children have been vaccinated and ~20 million people have avoided paralysis since the initiative was founded in 1988.
 
WHO’s response: “There’s so many children being protected today because of the work that was done over the past 40 years,” said Jamal Ahmed, WHO’s polio director. “Let’s not overdramatize the challenges, because that leads to children getting paralyzed.”
 
Polio’s end? Transmission is estimated to end within 18 months, and eradication reached by 2029, Ahmed said.

• 45 million children in Pakistan and 11 million in Afghanistan need to be vaccinated this year. 


• Full immunization requires four doses of two drops each.

AP
 
Related: Takeaways from AP’s report on problems in the worldwide campaign to eradicate polio – AP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Misuse of tourniquets is causing thousands of unnecessary amputations and deaths in Ukraine, surgeons say; one estimates that up to three quarters of the ~100,000 amputations performed on Ukrainian soldiers since 2022 were caused by improper use of tourniquets. The Telegraph

Adolescents in Rwanda aged 15 or older will be able to access family planning services without parental consent under a new law passed by the country’s parliament aimed at reducing teenage pregnancies. KT News (Rwanda)

An oral anti-COVID-19 treatment passed a clinical trial efficacy test, Korean scientists report in Nature Communications; the drug, called CP-COV03 or Xafty, is based on niclosamide, a medication previously used to treat tapeworm infections. UPI

About two-thirds (59%) of American adults polled will likely skip fall COVID-19 boosters heading into the cold and flu season; about six in ten Republicans say they will “definitely not” get the vaccine. KFF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Plastics: A ‘Grave, Growing’ Danger
The planet is awash in a “plastics crisis” that poses a threat to human and planetary health, finds a new report in The Lancet Countdown. 

Surge in production: Plastic output has grown 200X since 1950—driven largely by single-use items.

Toll on health: Plastics are linked to disease and death across all ages, costing ~$1.5 trillion annually in health-related damages.

• Infants and children are highly susceptible to toxins.

Soaring pollution: 8 billion metric tons of plastic now pollute the globe.

• <10% of plastic is recycled. 

And humans may be inhaling 100X more microplastics than previously assumed, finds a new study published in PLOS One, per The Hill.   

The Guardian

Related: UN races to close global deal that would curb virgin plastic and toxic additives – Environmental Health News GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES HIV/AIDS Wartime Russia is Losing the Battle Against HIV
War has significantly disrupted HIV prevention and care in Russia—developments that could have long-lasting impacts.

By the numbers: In the first year of the war alone, the recorded incidence of HIV among military personnel soared by 40X+.

• And the proportion of Russian HIV patients receiving antiretroviral therapy has now fallen below 50% for the first time in many years.

Barriers to care: War has amplified anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the country, and also contributed to the removal of NGOs assisting in HIV care.

But war itself is a key factor in transmission, as blood transfusions and the reuse of syringes in field hospitals have increased risks.

The Moscow Times HEAT As Temperatures Climb, So Do ER Visits
Emergency room visits increase with higher temperatures, especially among young children, finds a new study using California data published in Science Advances—and the maladies may be unexpected. 

• While the links between mortality rates and heatwaves have been long studied, heat’s impact on morbidity—illness and poor health—has been less understood. 

Findings: As temperatures increased, more people visited ERs for a range of illnesses, including some unexpected ones like poisoning, respiratory symptoms, and nervous system problems—though researchers say the connections to heat are not yet clear. 

• Data also showed that children under 5 visited ERs at higher rates than any other age group.

Public health implications: Researchers say that the study shows the need for broader protections for a wider span of the population. 

The Washington Post (gift link)

Related: 

American Summers Are Starting to Feel Like Winter – The Atlantic (gift link) 

Why certain medications can increase your risk in the heat – NPR TONIGHT: WEBINAR ON HEATWAVES QUICK HITS Gates Foundation promises $2.5B for ‘sidelined’ women’s health – The Hill

Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Chicago was supposed to warn residents about toxic lead pipes last year. Most still have no idea – Grist

Caffeine pouch craze: A teenage trend troubling some experts – BBC

Trump officials look to block abortion services at veterans affairs hospitals – The Guardian 

White House has no plan to mandate IVF care, despite campaign pledge – The Washington Post (gift link)

Eating ultra-processed foods could make it harder to lose weight – Nature

More elderly Americans are choking to death. Are these devices the answer? – AP

Unwanted pregnancies surge with alcohol, but not with cannabis, study finds – Society for the Study of Addiction via ScienceDaily Issue No. 2769
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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96 Global Health NOW: A ‘Deadly Intersection’ of Crises in Sudan; The Women Protecting Migrants in Brazil’s North; and July Recap View this email in your browser August 4, 2025 Forward Share Post People gather by the makeshift graves of those buried in Khartoum's southern suburb of al-Azhari, on August 2. Ebrahim Hamid/AFP via Getty A ‘Deadly Intersection’ of Crises in Sudan
Cemeteries in North Darfur in Sudan are expanding as hundreds of thousands of people trapped in conflict across the country face compounding humanitarian crises: relentless artillery attacks, deadly hunger, a growing cholera outbreak, destructive flooding, and perilous heat, reports Reuters via Arab News.

Widespread hunger: Famine conditions across the region are intensifying as food supplies are blocked and aid convoys are attacked—a part of the ongoing siege of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which seeks to cement its hold on the region in its conflict with the Sudanese military, now in its third year.

• Bakeries have shut down and prices for any available food have skyrocketed—leading many to rely on animal feed for sustenance, per UN News.


• Severe food shortages led to the deaths of 13 children last month at Lagawa displacement camp in East Darfur state, reports the BBC. 

Cholera outbreak: Cholera is also “ripping” through the region, with ~ 2,140 cases and at least 80 fatalities recorded, per another UN News report that described families forced to “navigate the deadly intersection of conflict, hunger, disease and environmental collapse.” 

• Children are especially at risk as medical supplies run low and basic infrastructure deteriorates. 

Flooding and heat: Meanwhile, torrential rains have displaced thousands of people across the country and heightened disease risk, reports Sudan Tribune, and overwhelmed hospitals are calling for urgent support amid extreme heat.  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Mass rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture of women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers in Tigray amount to crimes against humanity, according to a report from Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa; the authors call on international bodies to investigate. The Guardian

U.S. childhood vaccination rates continue to decline per the latest CDC data, which show that vaccination coverage for all children entering kindergarten in the 2024–25 school year declined for all reported vaccines from the year before, and the vaccine exemption rate rose to 3.6%. CIDRAP

Two mRNA vaccines against HIV induced a “potent” immune response to the virus, per an early-stage clinical trial published in Science Translational Medicine; the trial—only the third to test mRNA vaccines against HIV—showed 80% of participants who received either of the vaccines produced antibodies against viral proteins. Nature

Teen suicidal behavior and thoughts declined between 2021 and 2024 in the U.S., per the new National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which found the prevalence of serious suicidal thoughts in teens fell from nearly 13% to 10%, and the prevalence of suicide attempts declined from 3.6% to 2.7%. NPR Shots GHN EXCLUSIVE Alba Marina Gonzalez Andrade stands outside an informal migrant settlement in Boa Vista, Brazil. Julianna Deutscher The Women Protecting Migrants in Brazil’s North  
BOA VISTA, Brazil—From Pacaraima on the border with Venezuela, to the state capital of Boa Vista, and all the way to Bonfim on Brazil’s frontier with Guyana, traffickers prey on vulnerable migrants.
 
They promise good jobs but ensnare them in sex work or forced labor with meager or even no pay. 
 
Often the migrants’ protectors in Brazil’s north are women:

• Mayra Figueiras started a nonprofit, Humanidade Mais que Fronteiras, and prevents human trafficking with vocational training, language classes, and—when possible—food baskets.


• Marcia Maria de Oliveira, a professor and sociologist at the Universidade Federal de Roraima, has led human trafficking investigations for more than two decades. 


• Sister Ana Maria da Silva prevented machine gun-toting police from deporting dozens of women and children she was protecting from sexual exploitation. For her brave defiance, she’s known as La Monja Loca (The Crazy Nun).

Short profiles of these women and others reveal their deep commitment to breaking the cycle of exploitation.

Editor’s note: Julianna Deutscher, MD, MPH, reported this article—the third in a series—with support from the Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Global Health Reporting Fellowship. Read the first and second articles here. READ THE FULL STORY BY JULIANNA DEUTSCHER JULY MUST-READS How Do the Amish Avoid Allergies?
As rates of allergic diseases increase worldwide, one group remains far less affected: the Amish.

• Why? Childhood exposure to microbes such as those found in farm dust and farm animal exposure can contribute to the development of a healthy immune system. But researchers are still trying to pinpoint environmental factors unique to the Amish, who have fewer allergies than other traditional farming families worldwide.

The Washington Post (gift link)
Hanoi’s Concrete-Driven Air Quality Crisis 
Over the last year, Hanoi repeatedly topped global air pollution charts as smog draped the city. 

• What’s fueling the pollution? Urbanization in Vietnam has led to a rapid increase in development, which includes widespread use of concrete for highways, metro lines, and buildings; Vietnam uses more cement per capita than any country except China, and almost 2X than the U.S.

NBC
America’s Insomnia Epidemic
Insomnia can cause a cascade of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, depression, and injuries—yet it remains underdiagnosed, undertreated, and poorly understood.

• “The public and private sectors alike are barely doing a thing to address what is essentially a national health emergency,” writes Jennifer Senior, who chronicles her own struggle and exhaustive efforts to find solutions and calls for broader cultural and structural changes to address the sleep crisis.

The Atlantic (gift link) JULY RECAP: GHN EXCLUSIVE A mother holds up the cash incentive she received at the Farfaru clinic upon vaccinating her child. Sokoto, Nigeria. February 2025. Abiodun Jamiu Fighting Infant Mortality With Vaccines and Cash in Northern Nigeria
SOKOTO, Nigeria—In the region surrounding Farfaru’s primary health care center, health workers often had to persuade women to vaccinate their children.

• That began to change with the 2014 introduction of the New Incentives cash rewards program, which spurred a surge in mothers bringing their children in for childhood immunizations to protect against diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis B, and polio.


• The clinic now sees ~30–40 babies a day across 11 northern states—where vaccine hesitancy and misinformation run rampant and missed vaccinations contribute to rising infant mortality rates.

READ THE FULL STORY BY ABIODUN JAMIU JULY'S GOOD NEWS Two Countries Validated as Trachoma-Free
Trachoma has officially been eliminated in Burundi and Senegal, making them the eighth and ninth countries in the African region to reach that public health milestone. 

• The disease—the first eliminated neglected tropical disease in Burundi, and the second in Senegal—can lead to scarring, in-turned eyelids, and blindness, and primarily affects regions where clean water and sanitation are scarce, per the WHO. 90% of the global trachoma burden is in Africa. 

How they did it: Both countries implemented WHO-recommended SAFE strategy elimination interventions for trachoma, which include surgery for the late blinding stage, mass administration of azithromycin, public awareness campaigns, and improved water and sanitation access.
More Solutions News:
Tasteful solutions: A key drug to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is moxifloxacin, an extremely bitter medication that young children often refuse to take due to the taste. In trials, children reported that sweeter or flavored drugs were easier to take than the original. IPS

Coverage when temperatures climb: As more regions face record heat waves, a heat insurance program in India is offering new financial relief for daily wage workers who lose income or are forced to stop working during extreme heat—with “parametric” payouts triggered by a measurable event, like temperature exceeding a set threshold. NPR Goats and Soda

Swinging toward mobility: A physical therapist in Rio de Janeiro has helped dozens of people with Parkinson’s improve and maintain movement through capoeira—a blend of martial arts and a dance practiced for centuries by Afro-Brazilians that combines exercise, ritual, and music. AP OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Mpox testing initiative launched in Africa as outbreaks continue – CIDRAP

AMA and other medical associations are kicked out of CDC vaccine workgroups – AP

Data vs. Doubt: Danish Scientist Responds to U.S. HHS Secretary Critique of Aluminum Vaccine Study – Trial Site News

What will rescission do to foreign aid? Details are murky. Here's what we found out – NPR Goats and Soda

Their children can't eat, speak or walk - so forgotten Zika mothers raise them together – BBC

More than a dozen states sue to protect gender-affirming care from federal investigations – The 19th

‘Well, no, you don’t have to have children’: what African women over the age of 60 have learned about life – The Guardian

What makes Finland the ‘world’s happiest nation’? In a word, simplicity. – The Christian Science Monitor Issue No. 7-2025-July Monthly
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

Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. -->
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SUPPORT US
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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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96 Global Health NOW: A ‘Deadly Intersection’ of Crises in Sudan; The Women Protecting Migrants in Brazil’s North; and July Recap View this email in your browser August 4, 2025 Forward Share Post People gather by the makeshift graves of those buried in Khartoum's southern suburb of al-Azhari, on August 2. Ebrahim Hamid/AFP via Getty A ‘Deadly Intersection’ of Crises in Sudan
Cemeteries in North Darfur in Sudan are expanding as hundreds of thousands of people trapped in conflict across the country face compounding humanitarian crises: relentless artillery attacks, deadly hunger, a growing cholera outbreak, destructive flooding, and perilous heat, reports Reuters via Arab News.

Widespread hunger: Famine conditions across the region are intensifying as food supplies are blocked and aid convoys are attacked—a part of the ongoing siege of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which seeks to cement its hold on the region in its conflict with the Sudanese military, now in its third year.

• Bakeries have shut down and prices for any available food have skyrocketed—leading many to rely on animal feed for sustenance, per UN News.


• Severe food shortages led to the deaths of 13 children last month at Lagawa displacement camp in East Darfur state, reports the BBC. 

Cholera outbreak: Cholera is also “ripping” through the region, with ~ 2,140 cases and at least 80 fatalities recorded, per another UN News report that described families forced to “navigate the deadly intersection of conflict, hunger, disease and environmental collapse.” 

• Children are especially at risk as medical supplies run low and basic infrastructure deteriorates. 

Flooding and heat: Meanwhile, torrential rains have displaced thousands of people across the country and heightened disease risk, reports Sudan Tribune, and overwhelmed hospitals are calling for urgent support amid extreme heat.  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Mass rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual torture of women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers in Tigray amount to crimes against humanity, according to a report from Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa; the authors call on international bodies to investigate. The Guardian

U.S. childhood vaccination rates continue to decline per the latest CDC data, which show that vaccination coverage for all children entering kindergarten in the 2024–25 school year declined for all reported vaccines from the year before, and the vaccine exemption rate rose to 3.6%. CIDRAP

Two mRNA vaccines against HIV induced a “potent” immune response to the virus, per an early-stage clinical trial published in Science Translational Medicine; the trial—only the third to test mRNA vaccines against HIV—showed 80% of participants who received either of the vaccines produced antibodies against viral proteins. Nature

Teen suicidal behavior and thoughts declined between 2021 and 2024 in the U.S., per the new National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which found the prevalence of serious suicidal thoughts in teens fell from nearly 13% to 10%, and the prevalence of suicide attempts declined from 3.6% to 2.7%. NPR Shots GHN EXCLUSIVE Alba Marina Gonzalez Andrade stands outside an informal migrant settlement in Boa Vista, Brazil. Julianna Deutscher The Women Protecting Migrants in Brazil’s North  
BOA VISTA, Brazil—From Pacaraima on the border with Venezuela, to the state capital of Boa Vista, and all the way to Bonfim on Brazil’s frontier with Guyana, traffickers prey on vulnerable migrants.
 
They promise good jobs but ensnare them in sex work or forced labor with meager or even no pay. 
 
Often the migrants’ protectors in Brazil’s north are women:

• Mayra Figueiras started a nonprofit, Humanidade Mais que Fronteiras, and prevents human trafficking with vocational training, language classes, and—when possible—food baskets.


• Marcia Maria de Oliveira, a professor and sociologist at the Universidade Federal de Roraima, has led human trafficking investigations for more than two decades. 


• Sister Ana Maria da Silva prevented machine gun-toting police from deporting dozens of women and children she was protecting from sexual exploitation. For her brave defiance, she’s known as La Monja Loca (The Crazy Nun).

Short profiles of these women and others reveal their deep commitment to breaking the cycle of exploitation.

Editor’s note: Julianna Deutscher, MD, MPH, reported this article—the third in a series—with support from the Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Global Health Reporting Fellowship. Read the first and second articles here. READ THE FULL STORY BY JULIANNA DEUTSCHER JULY MUST-READS How Do the Amish Avoid Allergies?
As rates of allergic diseases increase worldwide, one group remains far less affected: the Amish.

• Why? Childhood exposure to microbes such as those found in farm dust and farm animal exposure can contribute to the development of a healthy immune system. But researchers are still trying to pinpoint environmental factors unique to the Amish, who have fewer allergies than other traditional farming families worldwide.

The Washington Post (gift link)
Hanoi’s Concrete-Driven Air Quality Crisis 
Over the last year, Hanoi repeatedly topped global air pollution charts as smog draped the city. 

• What’s fueling the pollution? Urbanization in Vietnam has led to a rapid increase in development, which includes widespread use of concrete for highways, metro lines, and buildings; Vietnam uses more cement per capita than any country except China, and almost 2X than the U.S.

NBC
America’s Insomnia Epidemic
Insomnia can cause a cascade of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, depression, and injuries—yet it remains underdiagnosed, undertreated, and poorly understood.

• “The public and private sectors alike are barely doing a thing to address what is essentially a national health emergency,” writes Jennifer Senior, who chronicles her own struggle and exhaustive efforts to find solutions and calls for broader cultural and structural changes to address the sleep crisis.

The Atlantic (gift link) JULY RECAP: GHN EXCLUSIVE A mother holds up the cash incentive she received at the Farfaru clinic upon vaccinating her child. Sokoto, Nigeria. February 2025. Abiodun Jamiu Fighting Infant Mortality With Vaccines and Cash in Northern Nigeria
SOKOTO, Nigeria—In the region surrounding Farfaru’s primary health care center, health workers often had to persuade women to vaccinate their children.

• That began to change with the 2014 introduction of the New Incentives cash rewards program, which spurred a surge in mothers bringing their children in for childhood immunizations to protect against diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis B, and polio.


• The clinic now sees ~30–40 babies a day across 11 northern states—where vaccine hesitancy and misinformation run rampant and missed vaccinations contribute to rising infant mortality rates.

READ THE FULL STORY BY ABIODUN JAMIU JULY'S GOOD NEWS Two Countries Validated as Trachoma-Free
Trachoma has officially been eliminated in Burundi and Senegal, making them the eighth and ninth countries in the African region to reach that public health milestone. 

• The disease—the first eliminated neglected tropical disease in Burundi, and the second in Senegal—can lead to scarring, in-turned eyelids, and blindness, and primarily affects regions where clean water and sanitation are scarce, per the WHO. 90% of the global trachoma burden is in Africa. 

How they did it: Both countries implemented WHO-recommended SAFE strategy elimination interventions for trachoma, which include surgery for the late blinding stage, mass administration of azithromycin, public awareness campaigns, and improved water and sanitation access.
More Solutions News:
Tasteful solutions: A key drug to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is moxifloxacin, an extremely bitter medication that young children often refuse to take due to the taste. In trials, children reported that sweeter or flavored drugs were easier to take than the original. IPS

Coverage when temperatures climb: As more regions face record heat waves, a heat insurance program in India is offering new financial relief for daily wage workers who lose income or are forced to stop working during extreme heat—with “parametric” payouts triggered by a measurable event, like temperature exceeding a set threshold. NPR Goats and Soda

Swinging toward mobility: A physical therapist in Rio de Janeiro has helped dozens of people with Parkinson’s improve and maintain movement through capoeira—a blend of martial arts and a dance practiced for centuries by Afro-Brazilians that combines exercise, ritual, and music. AP OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Mpox testing initiative launched in Africa as outbreaks continue – CIDRAP

AMA and other medical associations are kicked out of CDC vaccine workgroups – AP

Data vs. Doubt: Danish Scientist Responds to U.S. HHS Secretary Critique of Aluminum Vaccine Study – Trial Site News

What will rescission do to foreign aid? Details are murky. Here's what we found out – NPR Goats and Soda

Their children can't eat, speak or walk - so forgotten Zika mothers raise them together – BBC

More than a dozen states sue to protect gender-affirming care from federal investigations – The 19th

‘Well, no, you don’t have to have children’: what African women over the age of 60 have learned about life – The Guardian

What makes Finland the ‘world’s happiest nation’? In a word, simplicity. – The Christian Science Monitor Issue No. 2768
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: CTE in the Spotlight; Inside Brazil’s Human-Trafficking Crisis; and Mercury’s Toll on Mental Health View this email in your browser July 31, 2025 Forward Share Post Flowers and a balloon reading "love one another" that were left outside the 345 Park Avenue building, the scene of a July 28 deadly shooting in Midtown Manhattan, New York. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty CTE in the Spotlight 
  The gunman who killed four people in a Manhattan office shooting this week said in a note that he believed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative disease that stems from repeated hits to the head. 

It is unclear whether he had the condition, as it can only be diagnosed posthumously in an autopsy. But the violence has brought renewed attention to CTE—along with scrutiny about how the shooter was able to access a gun despite documented mental health hospitalizations, and deploy it in a city with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, per The New York Times (gift link). 

Concerns about CTE and full-contact sports have been building for two decades, as more studies have shown how repeated blows to the head lead to the buildup of brain-damaging proteins, per NPR. 

• A number of former football players who turned to violence—particularly suicide—were found posthumously to have CTE, reports The New York Times (gift link). 


• But self-diagnosis comes with its own dangers, reports The Atlantic (gift link)—especially as links between CTE and high school football, which the gunman played, remain understudied. 


• And the majority of people with CTE never engage in violence, Daniel H. Daneshvar, chief of brain injury rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School told The New York Times in another article (gift link): “I would never draw a direct line between someone’s brain pathology and any specific violent act.” 

Loopholes in gun laws: The perpetrator had twice been hospitalized for mental health reasons, but was still able to have a concealed carry license and access a gun in his home state of Nevada, which does not automatically disqualify someone from possessing or buying guns, despite having had emergency hospitalizations, reports The Trace.

• And such laws may not have mattered: The NYPD has said the shooter’s AR-style rifle was likely assembled using parts.

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Cholera threatens ~80,000 children across West and Central Africa, with active outbreaks in DRC and Nigeria posing a high risk of cross-border transmission; hardest-hit DRC reports 38,000+ cases, 951 deaths, and an alarming 8% case fatality rate in July. UNICEF via ReliefWeb
 
As deadly heat waves sweep East Asia, South Korea has recorded 13 heat-related deaths so far this year—3X the same period last year—and Japan recorded its highest-ever temperature of 41.2 degrees Celsius in Tamba. South China Morning Post

A large fungal meningitis outbreak in the U.S. that sickened 24 patients and killed 12 occurred among people who received epidural anesthesia for cosmetic surgeries in Matamoros, Mexico, in 2023, per a report in Clinical Infectious Diseases, which highlights the need for more rigorous diagnostic measures. CIDRAP

Dormant breast cancer cells in the lungs can be awakened by respiratory infections like COVID-19 or the flu, a study of mice published in Nature has found; the data could have implications for human cases, as SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection has been linked with a nearly 2X increase in cancer-related death. Nature U.S. and Global Health Policy News The Role of International Aid in Supporting Ukraine’s Recovery Efforts – Lviv Herald

Abortion shield laws are under fire – The Hill

Trump Prepares to Revoke Lifesaving Abortion Care for Veterans – The Intercept

Ousted vaccine panel members say rigorous science is being abandoned – AP

Top FDA vaccine regulator under Trump ousted amid conservative criticism – The Washington Post (gift link) GHN EXCLUSIVE A sunset in January over the Branco River in Roraima, Brazil's capital city, Boa Vista (Good View). Julianna Deutscher From Displacement to Exploitation: Inside Brazil’s Human-Trafficking Crisis
BOA VISTA, Brazil—The capital of northern Brazil’s Roraima state is known for the placid Branco River, gorgeous sunsets, and beautiful landscapes.

Yet behind the attractive façade, desperate Venezuelan migrants are too-often caught in a web of trafficking in drugs, weapons, gold, people, and organs.

Persistent risks: Many fall prey to Brazilian and Venezuelan criminal groups that lure migrants to the garimpos (illegal gold mines) with false promises but then trap them in modern slavery. Women are forced into sex work, often at the mines, posadas (motels), and restaurants.

Migrants are often bound not by physical captivity but by “invisible chains”—fear for a loved one’s safety, dependence on shelter, language barriers, or the urgent need to feed their children.

Back story: A year after the contentious reelection of President Nicolás Maduro, hundreds of Venezuelans still arrive daily through a small Brazilian border town north of Boa Vista.

In this second part of a series on Venezuelan migrants’ experiences in Brazil, Julianna Deutscher describes the migrants’ plight and the policy and funding barriers to their protection.

Editor’s note: Julianna Deutscher, MD, MPH, reported this article—the second in a series—with support from the Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Global Health Reporting Fellowship. Read the first article here. READ THE FULL STORY BY JULIANNA DEUTSCHER GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Mercury’s Toll on Mental Health 
Widespread mercury poisoning has been linked to high attempted suicide rates among youth in the Indigenous Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario, per a new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives. 

Background: Mercury contamination in the region began in the 1960s–70s, when a paper mill dumped ~10 tons of mercury into local rivers used for fishing.  

• Over the years, the Grassy Narrows First Nation community has seen suicide attempts increase dramatically—3X higher than in other First Nation communities in Canada.

Findings: Researchers analyzed mercury levels in 162 children and 80 mothers, finding three generations of mercury exposure linked to emotional and behavioral problems—particularly among women who ate fish during pregnancy. 

The Quote: “Our way of life has been totally destroyed,” said Grassy Narrows First Nation Chief Rudy Turtle

 Grist ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Literary Tails 
Bookshop pets have a pretty tough gig, considering their full-time job is to literally curl up with a good book.

And these days, they have even more responsibility thanks to social media—which has conferred main-character status upon the cockatiels, cats, and King Charles Spaniels inhabiting the stacks.

• “We get a whole bunch of readers, but people really come to see the animals,” said Anna Hersh, a co-owner and “animal care coordinator” of Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis—a mythic menagerie of birds, cats, fish, and a pair of chinchillas named Newbery and Caldecott. 

Where the Wild Things Are:

• Bear Pond Books in Vermont is under the supervision of Veruca Salt, a 35-year-old tortoise with 2,100+ Instagram followers, who hosts an annual birthday party with cake and stories—notably The Tortoise and the Hare.


• The Literary Cat Co. in Kansas partners with a local animal rescue to find happily-ever-afters for cats fostered at the shop. 


• Scattered Books in New York hires booksellers based on their bunny expertise—and not just knowledge of the plotlines of Peter Rabbit or Watership Down: 
  
  
  • “People come in and they’re like, ‘I love to read.’ I’m like, ‘How are you with rabbits?’” said owner Laura Schaefer, whose “bookstore bunnies” have top shelf status (despite being confined to empty bottom shelves). 

The New York Times (gift link)

QUICK HITS Canada’s Measles Outbreak Exceeds Cases in the U.S. – The New York Times (gift link)

Safety of JN.1-Updated mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines – JAMA Network Open

The status of ownership and utilization of long-lasting insecticidal treated nets in war-torn Tigray, Ethiopia – Nature Scientific Reports

U.S. Visa Bureaucracy and Its Burdens Among Early Career Scholars – bioRxiv (preprint)

Scientists just invented a safer non-stick coating—and it’s inspired by arrows – University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering via ScienceDaily

She ended up with a bat in her mouth — and $21,000 in medical bills – KFF Health News Issue No. 2767
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: Migration Response Done Right: Brazil’s Model; EPA Aims to Gut Key Climate Ruling; and Sierra Leone Ordered to Criminalize FGM View this email in your browser July 30, 2025 Forward Share Post GHN EXCLUSIVE Venezuelan refugees walk after crossing the border between Venezuela and Brazil in the city of Pacaraima, Roraima State, Brazil, on September 13, 2024. Alan Chaves/AFP via Getty Migration Response Done Right: Brazil’s Model for a World in Crisis
PACARAIMA, Brazil—Maria* steps out of a white truck on January 10 and walks toward a crowd of newly arrived Venezuelans.

• Alone and far from home, women and girls like Maria have faced gender-based violence and human trafficking as they fled Venezuela’s political and economic collapse, according to a 2023 study involving 9,000+ migrants in Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru.

A warm welcome: Migrants in Brazil had much more positive experiences than those in the other countries. The difference, says study author Susan Bartels, is the work of Operação Acolhida (Operation Welcome).

• The Brazilian government launched the program in 2018, as a unique collaboration with UN agencies and NGOs. The partnership blends military logistical support with respect for humanitarian autonomy, a rare balance in crisis response. 

A streamlined process: Maria is connected to free essential services, applies for asylum or permanent residency, and receives information about universal health care.

• She can also get free transportation to be reunited with family or friends across Brazil and is connected with employment services.

Challenges remain: U.S. government cuts to foreign aid are forcing some organizations to scale back their support of Operação Acolhida​​, but on this day, Maria’s new life begins. 

*Maria’s name was changed to protect her privacy.

Editor’s note: Julianna Deutscher, MD, MPH, reported this article—the first in a series marking today’s World Day Against Trafficking in Persons—with support from the Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Global Health Reporting Fellowship. READ THE FULL STORY BY JULIANNA DEUTSCHER GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Cholera is a “full-blown public health emergency” in DRC six months into renewed fighting that has obliterated sanitation and water supply systems, per Oxfam’s DRC director, Manenji Mangundu—with ~35,000 suspected cases and at least 852 related deaths since January, a 62% increase compared to 2024. Oxfam (news release)

Liver cancer cases are projected to double—from ~870,000 cases in 2022 to 1.52 million cases by 2050—but at least 60% of those cancers could be preventable, according to a Lancet Commission report published Monday. NBC

Undocumented immigrants faced a much higher risk of death at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—with Latino essential workers in particular showing a staggering 91% increase in deaths compared with 8% for the white U.S.-born subgroup—per a University of California, Santa Cruz analysis of demographic data. CIDRAP

All NIH research funding was temporarily halted Tuesday because of a footnote from an Office of Management and Budget document that limited NIH funding to staff salaries and expenses, not to research grants; the billions of funds were restored hours later in a turnabout NIH officials described as “chaos.” The Washington Post (gift link) U.S. and Global Health Policy News Budget cuts knock down a ‘pillar of public health,’ ending nutrition education – STAT

US placed on rights watchlist over health of its civil society under Trump – The Guardian

There's a major publishing slowdown at CDC's flagship journal – MedPage Today

Susan Monarez confirmed as Trump’s CDC director – AP

Dozens of state laws take aim at food dyes, amid a wave support for MAHA – NPR Shots CLIMATE CHANGE EPA Aims to Gut Key Climate Ruling 
The U.S. EPA will seek to rescind a key scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare—a move that could dismantle the legal basis for much of the country’s climate policy, reports the AP. 

Background: In 2009, the EPA determined that CO2 and other greenhouse gases can be regulated under the Clean Air Act because they harm human health. That “endangerment finding” has since underpinned regulations on emissions standards for everything from factories to cars, reports NPR. 

Repeal: Yesterday while at a car dealership, EPA head Lee Zeldin announced a proposal to eliminate the standards, reports Inside Climate News.

• The move is the latest Trump administration effort to roll back climate initiatives, including the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, per CNBC. 


• One ecologist likened a repeal to “a driver who is speeding towards a cliff taking his foot off the brake and instead pressing the accelerator.”

What’s next: The proposal must undergo public comment and is likely to face legal challenges from environmental groups and states.

Meanwhile, the WHO is urging action ahead of COP30 at a global climate and health conference in Brasília—as the “lived reality” of climate change “threatens to undo decades of global health progress.” GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES HUMAN RIGHTS Sierra Leone’s President Ordered to Ban FGM
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court of justice has ordered Sierra Leone to criminalize female genital mutilation (FGM), calling it “one of the worst forms of violence against women.” 

• A 2019 survey found that 83% of women in Sierra Leone had undergone FGM—71% of them before age 15. 

In early July, Sierra Leone passed the Child Rights Act 2025, which prohibits all forms of mental and physical violence against children—but as it does not specifically address FGM, human rights advocates are encouraging President Julius Maada Bio to send the act back to parliament for revision. 

• Despite recently becoming chair of ECOWAS, Bio has yet to publicly acknowledge the court’s ruling.

The Guardian QUICK HITS People are dying of malnutrition in Gaza. How does starvation kill you? – NPR Goats and Soda

Colombia Opens South America's First Safe Injection Sites – Think Global Health (commentary)

Kratom and 7-OH: What to know about the "legal morphine" compound – Axios

AMR surveillance project in Nigeria delivers life-saving impacts – University of Oxford (news release)

In Uganda a new epidemic alert system is helping fight mpox – Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

The Dutch Intersection Is Coming to Save Your Life – Bloomberg CityLab Issue No. 2766
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 Temporary Dip in Global Hunger?; Why European Vaccine Policies Don’t Fit the U.S.; and Remembering David Nabarro View this email in your browser July 29, 2025 Forward Share Post A South Sudanese refugee carrying her child on her back works at her vegetable crops. Turkana County, Kenya, October 2, 2019. Luis Tato/AFP via Getty A Temporary Dip in Global Hunger? 
Global hunger decreased slightly last year, but rising food prices and falling aid contributions mean that momentum will be unlikely to continue in the coming years, according to the UN’s 2025 food security and nutrition report published yesterday.

Takeaways:

• 8.2% of people worldwide, or 673 million people, were estimated to have experienced hunger last year, a drop from 8.5% in 2023 and 8.7% in 2022.


• 22 million fewer people experienced hunger last year compared to 2022.


• 2.3 billion people were considered moderately or severely food insecure last year, according to the report from five UN agencies.


• Advances in Southeastern Asia, Southern Asia, and South America were largely responsible for the lower global hunger numbers.

Threats:

• Hunger in much of Africa and Western Asia continues to rise.


• Global food inflation, driven by the pandemic, climate change, and the war in Ukraine, rocketed to almost 17% in early 2023 from 2% in late 2020, The Telegraph reports.

Food violence: At least two people were shot and killed yesterday by police battling desperate refugees in a northern Kenya refugee camp experiencing a food crisis, per The Telegraph.

The Quote: “These figures … are alarming enough, but the worst may be yet to come,” Kate Munro, of Action Against Hunger UK, told The Telegraph. “Cuts in international aid will hit the most vulnerable populations hardest.” GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Danish researchers combed the records of 1.2 million+ children over a 24-year period and found no evidence that the use of aluminum salts in vaccines increased the risk of asthma, autism, and a wide range of conditions diagnosed in childhood, per findings published in Annals of Internal Medicine. STAT

Common pollutants like PM2.5, nitrogen dioxide, and soot are all linked to a significantly higher risk of dementia, per a sweeping review of studies published in the Lancet Planetary Health that drew on data from nearly 30 million people. University of Cambridge via ScienceDaily

Nearly a quarter of African American adults had eye disease that went  undetected, according to a study of 3,434 adults ages 40 and older with eye conditions in a Los Angeles suburb; diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration were especially common. MedPage Today Thanks for the tip, Chiara Jaffe!

The Chinese government will offer parents a $500 subsidy per year for each child under the age of three, aimed at boosting the country’s slumping birth rate, but some economic analysts say the sums are too small to make an impact. DW U.S. and Global Health Policy News Odds of winning NIH grants plummet as new funding policy and spending delays bite – Science

Group criticizes NIH over suspended funding for TB research – CIDRAP

Judge blocks Trump administration’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood – AP

Senate to vote on Trump’s pick to lead the CDC – The Washington Post THE QUOTE
  "Venoms are evolutionary masterpieces, yet their antimicrobial potential has barely been explored. " ————— César de la Fuente of the University of Pennsylvania, senior author of a research project that used AI to sift through global venom libraries and uncovered dozens of promising drug candidates. —Penn Engineering Blog / University of Pennsylvania VACCINES Why European Immunization Policies Don’t Fit the U.S.
As Trump administration health officials question the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule, they are pointing to European countries as a model for a more minimalist approach that requires fewer immunizations than U.S. guidelines call for.

Apples and oranges: But global health experts argue that differences in vaccine schedules are not due to disagreements about safety, but instead are shaped by local disease risks, demographics, and health systems. 

• In the U.S., a more fractured and inaccessible health system means a broader vaccine schedule allows for continuity and protection that might otherwise be lost. 

The key question: “Given our specific disease burden and public-health goals, are we effectively protecting the most vulnerable people? Based on overwhelming evidence? The answer is yes,” said Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University. 

The Atlantic OBIT Remembering David Nabarro, ‘A Great Champion of Global Health’
David Nabarro, a key figure in global health who helped lead the international response to health threats ranging from Ebola to the COVID-19 pandemic, died Friday at age 75.

• “David was a great champion of global health and health equity,” WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus wrote.

Legacy of service: Nabarro was a physician whose early career focused on nutrition and child health throughout Iraq, South Asia, and East Africa. 

• He also helped coordinate the WHO’s response to the 2004 Indian earthquake, and took part in efforts to contain AIDS, malaria, bird flu, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak. He led the WHO’s messaging during COVID-19—a role that earned him a knighthood. 

“The Gandalf of the UN”: Colleagues praised Nabarro’s humility and his way of “quietly bringing people to the table who otherwise would not speak to each other.” 

NPR Goats and Soda RESOURCES QUICK HITS Cholera rampant among displaced and refugees in Darfur and eastern Chad – Dabanga Sudan

Measles Elimination Status: What It Is and How the U.S. Could Lose It – KFF

WHO urges action on hepatitis, announcing hepatitis D as carcinogenic – WHO

Preventing Firearm Suicide In Wyoming – Cowboy State Daily (commentary)

PAHO/WHO convenes journalists to reshape how road safety is covered in Latin America – PAHO 

845,000 dead on U.S. highways. Why not address the main cause? – The Washington Post (commentary; gift link) 

Michigan led on safe water after Flint, but mobile home parks are stubborn rough spot – AP

Looking at a sick person in VR can rev up our bodies’ immune systems – Science Issue No. 2765
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: Instability in Syria; Ivermectin for Added Protection?; and Nigeria’s Human Flycatchers View this email in your browser July 28, 2025 Forward Share Post Medical workers disinfect a hospital bed outside Sweida National Hospital, in southern Syria's predominantly Druze city of Sweida, on July 20. Shadi Al-Dubaisi/AFP via Getty Instability in Syria 
Deadly sectarian clashes in Syria’s southern Sweida province have led to mass displacement, hundreds of deaths, and a paralyzed health system—threatening the country’s tenuous postwar stability, per UN News. 

Background: The violence was sparked earlier this month by kidnappings between Bedouin tribal fighters and armed factions of the Druze minority group, reports the AP. 

• 800+ people have been killed, per initial estimates by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), and so far ~176,000 people have been displaced, per the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 


• Syrian government forces have intervened and established a ceasefire, but they are accused of siding with the clans and targeting civilians. 

Health system ‘under immense strain’: The WHO has confirmed five attacks on health care, including the killing of two doctors and obstruction of ambulances. 

• Hospital workers and patients described violence within wards and bodies piling up inside as the city morgue reached capacity. 


• Hospitals are now under “immense strain,” said WHO representative Christina Bethke—facing severe shortages of personnel, water, electricity, and essential supplies.

Aid access blocked: Poor security conditions are limiting the ability of the UN and partners to deliver medical supplies and other aid to those affected by the violence—leading to “severe humanitarian consequences for civilians,” per SNHR. 

Related Webinar Tomorrow: Stabilizing Syria: Rehabilitating Syria’s Public Health System in a Fragile Transition, hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies Middle East Program, featuring keynote remarks by Syria’s Transitional Minister of Health Musaab Nazzal Al-Ali and a panel discussion with Syria experts Bachir Tajaldin, Lolwa Al-Abdulmalek, and Diana Rayes, moderated by Mona Yacoubian.

• Tuesday, July 29, 11 a.m.–12:15 p.m. EDT
• Watch here

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES Today Is World Hepatitis Day The Latest One-Liners   Timor-Leste has been certified malaria-free by the WHO, which praised the country for “strong political will, smart interventions, sustained domestic and external investment and dedicated health workers” in its efforts; the designation marks the 47th country or territory to be declared malaria-free, and the third to be certified in the WHO’s South-East Asia region. WHO

At least 300 people—mainly children in Africa and Asia—have died since 2022 from cough and paracetamol syrups containing toxic industrial chemicals, per a WHO and UN Office on Drugs and Crime report that says “criminal networks” exploit weak regulations to use the chemicals as cheap substitutes for medicinal glycol. The Telegraph

A dengue outbreak in Samoa has led to a government-ordered closure of all schools in the country for a week, as children are most affected; 900+ cases were reported last week alone, per figures from the Samoa Observer, with 2,254 cases reported since January. Samoa Observer

A Salmonella outbreak tied to raw milk from a California dairy farm sickened 171 people, including 120 children and adolescents, between October 2023 and March 2024, per a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published last week. CIDRAP U.S. and Global Health Policy News Lesotho mothers fear passing HIV to their babies as US aid cuts halt testing – The Telegraph

Rural Oklahoma kids were getting more counselors — then federal cuts pulled funding – NPR

Trump targets supervised consumption of drugs and harm reduction in executive order – STAT

As the ADA turns 35, groups fighting for disability rights could see their federal dollars slashed – AP

Congressional panels resist White House proposals for sharp cuts in indirect cost rates – Science MALARIA Ivermectin for Added Protection?
A new malaria control strategy involving mass administration of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin is showing promise, per results from a large trial in Kenya published in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Background: Ivermectin makes human blood toxic to mosquitoes—allowing humans to target mosquitoes via their food source, reports Science. 

Trial details: The trial, which targeted school-age children, involved 20,000+ participants across 84 communities who received ivermectin or a control drug during the rainy season. 

• The communities that administered ivermectin saw a 26% reduction in new malaria infections. 


• The intervention showed added protection beyond existing bed net use—meaning it shows potential as a complementary tool, reports Medical Xpress. 

Mixed reception: While some researchers praised the findings and described the drug as an “addition to the malaria control arsenal,” others questioned the modest impact and “questionable public health benefits,” including ivermectin’s unsuitability for pregnant women and very young children.

What’s next: The WHO has said more evidence will be needed before it can endorse the approach. GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NEGLECTED DISEASES Nigeria’s Human Flycatchers 
In the battle against onchocerciasis, the parasitic disease that causes river blindness, researchers in Nigeria are relying on “human landing catches” to help them mark progress.

• 40 million people are at risk of onchocerciasis in Nigeria, where there are 120,000 cases of related blindness.

How it works: Volunteers expose their skin to lure and trap the black flies that transmit the disease.

Why? The main strategy to curb transmission is mass drug administration to prevent the parasite’s spread. But researchers can only know how the effort is working by testing flies. 

A push for alternatives? Using humans as bait has long raised ethical concerns. Researchers are currently testing other trap models to potentially use instead.

The Guardian QUICK HITS Israel pauses attacks in some of Gaza to allow limited aid, as global criticism grows – NPR

‘Changed my life’: hepatitis treatment offers hope but not enough receiving care, report finds – The Guardian

Native leaders push back on gender-affirming care restrictions for tribal citizens – The 19th

E.U. regulator approves injectable HIV drug that experts say could help stop transmission – NBC

Coercive Care: Southern Europe’s Reliance on Elder Restraints – Undark

Other nations had a pandemic reckoning. Why hasn’t the US? – The Christian Science Monitor

America is in denial about its flood risks – Slate

WHO unveils health and environment scorecards for 194 countries – WHO

The Ghost in the Therapy Room – The New York Times (gift link) Issue No. 2764
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: Hunger Grips Gaza; The Complex Quest for a Long-COVID Drug; and Cracking On View this email in your browser July 24, 2025 Forward Share Post Yasmine, a 22-year-old Palestinian mother, holds her malnourished 2-month-old daughter Teen as they await treatment at the Nasser hospital, in Khan Yunis. Gaza Strip, July 24. AFP via Getty Hunger Grips Gaza
Gazans are trapped in a deepening crisis of “man-made starvation,” the WHO’s chief said yesterday—joining 100+ humanitarian agencies warning that Israel’s blockade of food and aid supplies has led to “chaos, starvation, and death,” reports The Guardian. 

• 111 people have now died from hunger, including 80 children, even as supplies remain stuck at borders. 


• The WHO estimates ~100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, while doctors have reported seeing record numbers of malnourished children and older people, reports the BBC. 

Doctors and aid workers are also starving, as hospitals and humanitarian organizations report “witnessing their own colleagues and partners waste away before their eyes,” per Health Policy Watch. 

• Medical staff are becoming too weak to treat patients—even as hospitals fill with people who are malnourished and injured, per another report from The Guardian. 

Meanwhile, 1,000+ Palestinians have been killed trying to access food since the Israeli- and U.S.- backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation took over aid distribution in May, the UN said this week.

And a WHO staff member remains in Israeli detention following an attack on a WHO warehouse and facilities, per Health Policy Watch. 

Related: Gaza has been at risk of famine for months, experts say. Here’s why they haven’t declared one. – AP  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   Editing mosquitoes' genome can make them highly resistant to spreading malaria by changing just one amino acid, finds a new study published in Nature—an adjustment that could be engineered to spread through an entire mosquito population. UC San Diego Today

Diet is the key driver of obesity, not lack of exercise, finds a new international study published in PNAS—which compared the daily total calorie burn for people from 34 different countries and cultures around the world. NPR

Immunity to seasonal flu is protective against severe illness from avian flu in ferrets, finds a study in Science Translational Medicine that looked at how the H1N1 virus that began circulating in 2009 lowered susceptibility to currently circulating H5N1. Medical Xpress

A €10 million stockpile of USAID-funded condoms, pills, and other contraceptives will be incinerated in France; the U.S. rejected NGO offers to buy up the supplies, warehoused in Belgium since the U.S. froze foreign aid programs in January. Euractiv U.S. and Global Health Policy News Michael R. Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Is Making America Sick Again. Republicans Need a Cure – Bloomberg News (commentary)
UK government shutters aid program to fight antimicrobial resistance – CIDRAP

U.S. Quietly Drafts Plan to End Program That Saved Millions From AIDS – The New York Times (gift link)

Trump's plan to slash global health spending rejected by key spending panel – Science

RFK Jr.'s Vaccine-Safety Analyst Has Already Disqualified Himself – The Atlantic

New EPA proposal aims to strike down landmark climate "endangerment finding" – Environmental Health News COVID-19 The Complex Quest for a Long-COVID Drug
The failure of a once-promising long-COVID drug trial highlights the challenges of trying to treat the complex condition, and is prompting a reevaluation of how study design should work. 

Background: Long-COVID patients and practitioners had been closely watching developments from German start-up Berlin Cures on its novel drug, called BC 007 (rovunaptabin). But phase II trials ended unsuccessfully last November.

Defects in design: While some participants did see improvement in their symptoms following BC 007 infusions, critics say failures in study design meant that such changes could not be adequately measured. 

Participant problem: The trial also demonstrates the challenge of casting “too wide a net” for trial participants: The trial used a blood test to select participants—but long COVID includes a wide range of diseases and conditions, which may respond differently to treatments. 

The Sick Times (published in cooperation with STAT)

Related:

From Long Flu to Long COVID: A Brief History of Postviral Illness – Think Global Health

COVID-19 cases are rising in these states amid summer wave, CDC data shows
CBS News DATA POINT

82%
———
The percentage of the population of Tuvalu seeking a landmark climate visa to live in Australia; the low-lying Pacific nation is one of the “most climate-threatened corners of the planet.” —Radio France Internationale
  INFECTIOUS DISEASES A Sweet Success for Tuberculosis Medication 
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) has risen among children globally from 1990 to 2019. 

A key drug to treat MDR TB is moxifloxacin, an extremely bitter medication that young children often refuse to take due to the taste. 

• Annually, there are 32,000 new cases of RR/MDR TB, a strain resistant to two first-line treatments in children under 14—an age range especially sensitive to taste.

Tasteful solutions: Sweeter, bitter-masked versions of drugs may help with medication adherence. In trials, children reported that sweeter or flavored drugs were easier to take than the original. 

IPS ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Cracking On
Between a quarter to half of all people pop their knuckles, which means there is a very large population who just really wants them to stop. 

But the latter group’s key bit of leverage—warning persistent knuckle-crackers that they are destined to have arthritis—has been snapped: 

• Studies have repeatedly found that knuckle-cracking has no bearing on arthritis.

Knuckling down on research: When people crack their knuckles, they temporarily open up the tight space of the knuckle joint, leading to a drop in pressure and the formation of bubbles that then burst, causing the popping sound, explains a rheumatologist who called the arthritis query a “common question I get asked over the dinner table.”

• Arthritis can be affected by genetics and joint trauma, but not popping. 

Single-handed study: One doctor’s pursuit to prove his mother wrong on the matter led him to crack the knuckles on just one hand every day for 60+ years. 

• When he finally had both hands assessed, there were no signs of arthritis in either—netting him an Ig Nobel award, and the ultimate “toldja so.”

The Guardian QUICK HITS In Syria, Landmines and Unexploded Ordnance Haunt the Return Home – Inkstick

Is Bird Flu Gone for Good? – Public Health on Call

CDC says COVID-related emergency room visits climbing especially among young children – University of Nebraska Medical Center

Doctors are biased against higher-weight patients. Can nutrition education help them change? – STAT

Smoking avatars and online games: how big tobacco targets young people in the metaverse – The Guardian

Researchers move closer to a universal cancer vaccine – CNBC

In Darfur’s displacement epicentre, community kitchens shoulder the load – The New Humanitarian

Talc Is Suddenly in the Spotlight. Is it Bad for You? – TIME Issue No. 2763
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 Malaria’s Rebound; How Do the Amish Avoid Allergies?; and Swinging Toward Mobility View this email in your browser July 23, 2025 Forward Share Post A malaria warning sign. Mbire, Zimbabwe. May 15, 2021. Cynthia R Matonhodze/Bloomberg via Getty Malaria’s Rebound
Malaria is surging in southern Africa, as heavy rains drive mosquito activity and as USAID funding cuts disrupt access to critical tools like insecticide-treated bed nets—“leaving communities exposed and placing further strain on already stretched health systems,” reports the Africa CDC.

‘Back with a vengeance’ in Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe has reported 111,998 cases and 310 deaths compared to 29,031 cases with 49 deaths in the same period last year.

• USAID cuts this year crippled the Zimbabwe Entomological Support Programme in Malaria and led to a shortfall of 600,000 insecticide-treated nets, reports The Guardian. 


• “When the supply of test kits and first-line treatments is disrupted, malaria cases and deaths will spiral,” said Itai Rusike, director of Zimbabwe’s Community Working Group on Health. 

Botswana, Eswatini, and Namibia are also reporting significant outbreaks, as climate change expands the range of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and impacts people in high-risk livelihoods like mining and agriculture. 

The issue of ‘interconnectedness’: Cross-border transmission occurs easily in southern Africa, highlighting the need for cooperation in surveillance and other efforts. 

Pushing forward: Despite heavy setbacks, African health officials say they are still investing in elimination efforts—pointing to significant progress in countries like Cabo Verde and Egypt.

• “We have just been disturbed, but our vision is to eliminate malaria by 2030,” said Zimbabwe’s deputy health minister, Sleiman Kwidini.

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners   A large chikungunya outbreak is spreading rapidly from three Indian Ocean islands to Africa, and parts of South East Asia are also experiencing outbreaks; prevention efforts center on avoiding mosquito bites, though the WHO said it will review trial data on two chikungunya vaccines not yet recommended for global use. Health Policy Watch

People’s brains aged faster than expected during the pandemic—even those of people who weren’t infected, per a Nature Communications study of nearly 1,000 people published yesterday; researchers found that the brains of people who had lived through the pandemic had aged 5.5 months faster than those of people in a control group. Nature

How to reduce the frequent E. coli outbreaks linked to romaine lettuce? Stop spraying leaves with untreated surface water and improve cold storage from field to produce delivery, write Cornell University researchers and colleagues in a recent Scientific Reports study. Cornell University via ScienceDaily

Australia’s winter flu surge has led to a 50% increase in hospital admissions over two weeks, per new data that also show the national rate of influenza vaccine coverage to be below 30%. ABC Australia U.S. and Global Health Policy News Small win for activists, but SA’s HIV projects won’t get reopened
 – Bhekisisa

Viewpoints: Cuts To NIH And Global Health Research Are Dangerous And May Accelerate The Next Pandemic – KFF Health News

WHO’s Tedros: US Rejection of International Rules on Health Threats is Based on ‘Inaccuracies’ – Health Policy Watch

Kentucky’s campaign to improve rural cancer care is a national model. Federal cuts threaten its progress – STAT

Disabled Americans fear what Medicaid cuts could do to them – The New York Times (gfit link)

FDA taps biotech industry veteran as RFK Jr.’s top drug regulator – CNBC IMMUNOLOGY How Do the Amish Avoid Allergies? 

As rates of allergic diseases increase worldwide, one group remains largely immune: the Amish. 

• Just 7% of Amish children had a positive response to one or more common allergens, compared with more than half of the general U.S. population, a 2012 study found.


• They also have fewer allergies than other traditional farming families worldwide.

Why? Researchers have found that childhood exposure to microbes such as those found in farm dust and farm animal exposure can contribute to the development of a healthy immune system. 

• But they are still trying to pinpoint “time-honored and very stable” environmental factors unique to the Amish, in hopes of developing more protective therapies and interventions.

The Washington Post (gift link)

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES PARKINSON'S Swinging Toward Mobility 
The damage Parkinson’s disease does to a person’s sense of balance and stability can often lead them to feel physically and mentally stuck. 

But a physical therapist in Rio de Janeiro has helped dozens of people with Parkinson’s improve and maintain movement through capoeira—a blend of martial arts and a dance practiced for centuries by Afro-Brazilians that combines exercise, ritual, and music.

• The initiative, “Parkinson na ginga” (“Parkinson’s in the swing”), started in 2018, and helps participants build strength and balance in a fun and social environment.

The Quote: “Capoeira gives me freedom to work on my body,” said participant Teles de Freitas. 

AP NEW RESOURCE QUICK HITS A lifeline lies in ruins: Iranian missile destroys a rehab center for disabled kids – The Times of Israel (from June 17) Thanks for the tip, Chiara Jaffe! 

Russia Accused Of 'Stealing' Ukraine's Future With Forced Deportation Of Children – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

A gut-wrenching problem we can solve – Gates Notes

Indonesian military’s new pharma role sparks fears of expanded powers – Reuters via The Straits Times

Louisiana Upholds Its HIV Exposure Law as Other States Change or Repeal Theirs – MedPage Today

Austin Public Health finds measles in the water – Austin American Statesman 

Flu vaccine averted up to 42% of US flu cases in 2022-23, despite lower uptake – CIDRAP

The new strategy to restrict abortion nationwide — without saying ‘ban’ – The 19th

The optimistic brain: scans reveal thought patterns shared by positive thinkers – Nature  Issue No. 2762
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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96 Global Health NOW: Asia’s Floods Highlight Need for Faster Warnings; Tracing New H5N1 Transmission Routes; and Two More Countries Now Trachoma-Free View this email in your browser July 22, 2025 Forward Share Post A young boy pushes a tuk-tuk through a flooded street in Manila on July 22, after heavy rains caused flooding worsened by a monsoon. Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Asia’s Floods Highlight Need for Faster Warnings
As typhoons lash parts of Asia and cause flooding, evacuations, and hundreds of deaths, a UN agency says that current warning systems are inadequate against today’s more frequent, more intense storms.

• Typhoon Wipha struck the Philippines on Monday and early today with torrential rains that left parts of the country with knee- to waist-deep flooding, Reuters reports.


• Nearly 50,000 people living near the Marikina River in the Manila region and in the Quezon and Caloocan cities have been evacuated, per Al Jazeera. At least five people are dead and seven missing.


• Vietnam is bracing for 500mm (~20 inches) of rain as well as flooding and landslides caused by Wipha, now downgraded to a tropical storm.


• More than 120 people in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, have died in “exceptional high” floods since monsoon rains started June 26, UN News reports.

A better warning system: World Meteorological Organization officials said yesterday that they are seeking to expand the Early Warnings for All flood forecasting system worldwide by 2027, per another UN News article. The system, currently used in 70+ countries, draws on satellite data, radar, and weather modeling to provide hours of advance warning.

Related: Texas Lawmakers Largely Ignored Recommendations Aimed at Helping Rural Areas Like Kerr County Prepare for Flooding – ProPublica GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES The Latest One-Liners
War-wounded Ukrainian patients treated at Helsinki University Hospital in Finland showed a high rate of multidrug-resistant bacterial infection per a study in Clinical Microbiology and Infection—indicating that war-related hospitalizations represent a distinct and urgent risk of antimicrobial-resistance, the researchers say. CIDRAP

Over one-third of contributors to the development of 2023 American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on evaluating and treating children and adolescents with obesity—which leaned toward the use of obesity medications—had undisclosed financial ties to obesity drugmakers, per a new analysis in BMJ. STAT

A million+ people in France have signed a petition against the so-called “Duplomb law” adopted on July 8 permitting a return of a pesticide, acetamiprid, known to be toxic to pollinators such as bees and ecosystems. AFP via France24

Switching to a four-day work week created happier, healthier, more productive workers—reducing burnout and increasing job satisfaction, per the largest study to date of such an intervention that encompassed six countries: Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland. Nature U.S. and Global Health Policy News ________________________________________________________________ Planned Parenthood wins partial victory in legal fight with Trump administration over funding cuts – AP

FDA Panel Takes Aim at SSRI Use During Pregnancy – MedPage Today

Advocates Fear US Agents Are Using ‘Wellness Checks’ on Children as a Prelude to Arrests – Bloomberg CityLab

States sue over citizenship curbs on Head Start, clinics – Axios

GOP megabill’s final score: $3.4T in red ink and 10 million kicked off health insurance, CBO says – Politico

The quick return of medical debt to credit reports is another blow to cancer patients – STAT (commentary) AVIAN FLU Tracing New Routes of H5N1 Transmission
Scientists are gaining new insights into how H5N1 could spread among dairy cattle, particularly two potential routes: contamination from house flies, and from cows and calves nursing.

Background: When H5N1 first emerged in dairy cattle, researchers believed contaminated equipment and movement of infected cattle were key factors in virus spread. 

• But when outbreaks continued after addressing those issues, scientists expanded their investigation and found new insights:

Flies: Avian influenza detected in house flies leads scientists to believe that the insects can “mechanically” acquire and move the virus. 

“Milk-snatching”: New research published in National Science Review found that H5N1 may infect mammary glands via mouth-to-teat transmission through nursing, and via cows that “steal milk” through mutual nursing. 

CIDRAP GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NEGLECTED DISEASES Two Countries Validated as Trachoma-Free
Trachoma has officially been eliminated in Burundi and Senegal, making them the eighth and ninth countries in the African region to reach that public health milestone.

• The disease—the first eliminated neglected tropical disease in Burundi—can lead to scarring, in-turned eyelids, and blindness, and primarily affects regions where clean water and sanitation are scarce, per the WHO.


• In Senegal, trachoma is the second neglected tropical disease to be eliminated after being declared free of dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease) transmission in 2004, per a separate WHO report.


• 90% of the global trachoma burden is in Africa. 


• 93 million people live in at-risk areas as of April 2024. 

Success in action: Both countries implemented WHO-recommended SAFE strategy elimination interventions for trachoma, which include surgery to treat the late-blinding stage of the disease, antibiotic mass drug administration of azithromycin, public awareness campaigns, and improved water supply and sanitation access.

Related:

WHO plans trachoma elimination intervention in Nigeria, 19 others – The Guardian Nigeria

Breaking the cycle of neglected diseases – Nature (commentary) OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Why England can learn from Scotland after first measles death in a decade – The Telegraph

High prevalence of colistin-resistant Klebsiella found in Africa – CIDRAP

Battling Lassa Fever: Liberia’s Strides in Preparedness and Response – Front Page Africa

A creek with atomic waste from WWII is linked to increased cancer risk – NPR Shots

Air Pollution in Baltimore’s Curtis Bay Community Linked to Nearby Coal Terminal Activities and Wind – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 

The potential gains of replenishing the Global Fund – The Lancet (commentary)

Birth control access: Scorecard evaluates family planning policies across the U.S. – NBC​​ Thanks for the tip, Chiara Jaffe! 

The New Sun Worship – The Atlantic

Engineers transform dental floss into needle-free vaccine – Science Issue No. 2761
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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