Global Health Programs aggregator

World Health Organization: US aid funding cuts put HIV prevention at risk, warns UNAIDS

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

The US pause in foreign assistance funding has created “confusion” in the vital work of community HIV prevention, despite a waiver issued for HIV/AIDS programmes, the UN agency to combat the still deadly disease said on Friday.

Global Health Now: Global Health NOW: Argentina to Exit the WHO; A Potent New Way to Treat Pain; and Fat Bear Week in Altadena

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:43:18 -0500

Global Health NOW: Argentina to Exit the WHO; A Potent New Way to Treat Pain; and Fat Bear Week in Altadena

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February 6, 2025


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Argentina's President Javier Milei leaves the Holocaust Museum after attending an event to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Buenos Aires, on January 27. Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty

Following Trumpʼs Lead, Argentina to Exit WHO

Argentina’s president Javier Milei has announced the country will leave the WHO, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s lead, reports The Guardian.

Rationale: Milei attributed his decision to the WHO’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling the lockdowns a “caveman quarantine” and “one of the most outlandish crimes against humanity in history.”

Milei’s actions have echoed other Trump policies, including a new crackdown on transgender care for minors.

Impact: Whereas the U.S. has supplied ~15% of WHO's budget, Argentina was expected to provide just ~$8 million of the agency’s estimated $6.9 billion 2024–2025 budget, per the AP.

“WHO flu”: The bigger concern, health advocates say, is a growing trend CIDRAP’s director Michael Osterholm dubbed “WHO flu”—in which countries pull out of the global health organization for political reasons.

Reaction: The announcement sparked immediate criticism from health organizations who say the move reduces Argentina’s access to health funding and resources. Opposition leaders said the decision would need to be approved by the country’s congress.

Meanwhile: The Trump administration has been considering plans for WHO reform—including putting an American in charge of the agency in order for it to remain a member of the global body, reports Reuters.

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES

The Latest

One-Liners

A newer strain of bird flu has been detected in six dairy herds in Nevada; the strain, D1.1, is different from the one that has already been circulating in U.S. dairy herds, and that has been associated with severe infections in birds and humans. CNN

Patients using diabetes apps can potentially miss critical blood glucose level alerts due to improper settings especially after software and hardware updates, per a new FDA alert and recommendations. Medscape

Travelers to Uganda are being urged to take “enhanced precautions” because of the Ebola outbreak there, per alerts put out by the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.; recommendations include avoiding health care centers. AP

A kidney cancer vaccine is showing early promise, as Phase I trial results showed that nine patients at high risk for cancer recurrence remained cancer-free after three years; results suggest that the vaccines could someday be used for a wider variety of cancers. Gizmodo

NEGLECTED DISEASES

Niger’s Historic Victory Over River Blindness

Niger’s elimination of onchocerciasis—a parasitic disease more commonly known as river blindness—is being lauded as a “beacon of hope” in the quest to end NTDs.

Niger is the first country in the African continent to eliminate the disease, which can cause severe vision problems and blindness, plunging families into poverty.

What it took: The effort was 45 years in the making, and required extensive tracking, vector control, medication distribution—and partnering with the global Onchocerciasis Elimination Committee, a global network of NGOs and disease experts.

Building on momentum: Eliminating river blindness in Niger alone is estimated to have added $2.3 billion USD to the country’s economy between 1976 and 2019 as prevention programs accelerated.

The Telegraph

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES

PHARMACEUTICALS

A Potent New Way to Treat Pain

The FDA’s move last week to greenlight a non-opioid pain medication—the first in 20+ years—is being heralded as “groundbreaking” and a “public health milestone,” according to The Hill.

The basics: The new analgesic drug, suzetrigine, will be sold under the brand name Journavx and used to treat moderate to severe acute pain, reports U.S. News.

How it works: Whereas opioids bind to receptors in the brain, the new drug targets a pain-signaling pathway in the peripheral nervous system before pain signals reach the brain.

“As a result, you shouldn’t get euphoria,” explained neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta in a CNN interview this week.

ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION

Fat Bear Week in Altadena

For one 525-pound California black bear, the Los Angeles wildfires werenʼt a compelling enough reason to leave a cozy basement in Altadena.

After evacuating, Samy Arbid returned home to find his tubby tenant had doubled down(stairs), waiting out the emergency in the basement. Beary, aka Victor, was “probably trying to lay low, conserve energy and sleep for a while,” according to Kevin Howells, an environmental scientist who helped lure Beary from his lair, the New York Times reports (gift link).

Weʼd have made a case here for ursine eminent domain, but animal control had other ideas. A tranquilizer wasnʼt gonna cut it on this majestic creature, so they lured him—very slowly and adorably—with a buffet of rotisserie chicken, sardines, tomato sauce, peanut butter, and promise of a new life in Angeles National Forest, Los Angeles Magazine reports.

But will forest cuisine suit this urbaniteʼs palate? As one neighbor explained to CBS News: “He just wants some good trash, like we all like some good trash.” (Wait ... do we, though!?)

QUICK HITS

Sudanese relief workers in the capital fear reprisals from army – Al Jazeera

Sweden searches for answers after country's deadliest shooting – BBC

Public health group alarmed by online ‘DEI Watchlist’ targeting federal staff – CNN

Spinal cord electrical stimulation restores neural function in clinical trial – Medical Xpress

Time blindness is a psychological phenomenon. Here are steps to combat it. – The Washington Post (gift link)

Issue No. 2671

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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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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World Health Organization: ‘She had a syringe, razor blade, and bandages’: Surviving genital mutilation

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

Some 230 million girls in more than 90 countries – predominantly in Africa and Asia – have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) and can suffer lifelong physical, emotional and psychological scars, an issue that the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency has been tackling with the support of the international community including the United States.

World Health Organization: Gaza: UN health agency urges rapid scale-up of medevacs as thousands remain in critical condition

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

More than 12,000 critically ill and injured patients, including at least 5,000 children, urgently need to be evacuated from Gaza, amid the crumbling health system, the UN World Health Organization (WHO)’s top official in the region said on Thursday.

World Health Organization: ‘Step Up the Pace’ and end female genital mutilation, UN says

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

As the world marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on Thursday, the United Nations is warning that without urgent action, a staggering 27 million more girls could undergo the procedure by 2030.

World Health Organization: Toxic air threatens children’s lives across East Asia and the Pacific, UNICEF warns

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

More than 100 children under the age of five die every day in East Asia and the Pacific due to air pollution, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned in a new analysis released on Thursday, calling for urgent action to tackle the crisis.

Global Health Now: Global Health NOW: ‘Absolute Emergency’ in Goma; Female ‘Honor’ Killings on the Rise in Iran; and India Grapples with the Future of Gas Stoves

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 09:36:52 -0500

Global Health NOW: ‘Absolute Emergency’ in Goma; Female ‘Honor’ Killings on the Rise in Iran; and India Grapples with the Future of Gas Stoves

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February 5, 2025


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Residents watch as members of the Congolese Red Cross and the Civilian Protection bury dozens of bodies in a cemetery in Goma on February 3. Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty

‘Absolute Emergency’ in Goma

Extreme violence in the eastern DRC over the last two weeks has left 900+ dead, ~2,880 injured, and a displaced population facing heightened risk of sexual violence and disease outbreaks, reports UN News.

Background: Per Norwegian Refugee Council, rebels with the Rwandan-backed M83 militia have seized large areas of Goma, the regional capital of North Kivu, severely restricting humanitarian access to a region that is already home to 696,000+ internally displaced people.

The latest: A ceasefire allowed residents to assess the devastation and to hurriedly bury ~2,000 bodies amid feared spread of disease, reports Al Jazeera.

The Goma airport remains closed, paralyzing relief operations. “Every hour lost puts more lives at risk. This is an absolute emergency,” said Bruno Lemarquis, the UN’s top humanitarian official in the DRC.

Violence against women: Reports of sexual violence have become “tragically routine,” reports UN Women. After a prison break in Goma, reports emerged that hundreds of incarcerated women were raped and burned to death, reports The Guardian.

Risk of outbreaks: The WHO is warning of heightened disease risk, including cholera, mpox, and measles, reports Anadolu.

Exacerbating the crisis: A 90-day suspension of U.S. humanitarian funding is “severely impacting” relief efforts, says the UN.

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES

The Latest

One-Liners

Inadequate breast cancer screening and care systems could lead to the deaths of an estimated 135,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa by 2040, a new WHO report finds; in 2022, half of the women diagnosed with breast cancer in the region died from the disease. WHO

Trans health and research programs are being halted by the Trump administration, with notices sent in recent days that terminate funding and block ongoing research—leaving many researchers, medical organizations, and advocates in limbo. The Washington Post (gift article)

Flies in hospital wards may be carrying drug-resistant bacteria between patients, Nigerian researchers have found in a new study published in Environment International, which found that some flies were carrying bacteria most common in hospital-acquired infections. The Guardian

Health care affordability and access were ranked by Americans as the highest public health priority for government leaders to address, per a new public health survey by Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Gallup. Emory University Rollins School of Public Health

Trump Transition News

Public Health Journal Won't Be Complicit in Trump Admin's Censorship – MedPage Today

Medical journal editors must resist CDC order and anti-gender ideology – BMJ (commentary)

Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s orders – Nature

Senate committee advances RFK Jr.'s nomination for HHS secretary in party-line vote – CBS

Federal health workers terrified after 'DEI' website publishes list of 'targets' – NBC

America Can’t Just Unpause USAID – The Atlantic

VIOLENCE

Female ‘Honor’ Killings on the Rise in Iran

At least 133 women and girls—about one every two days—were killed in 2024 by male family members, with most of the deaths identified as “honor” killings, according to an analysis by RFE/RL's Radio Farda.

Most femicide cases in Iran are excused as family disputes in which a female member is targeted for allegedly violating societal or religious traditions, per human rights advocates.

The violence is rising: Between 2021 and 2023, male relatives killed at least 165 women, an Iranian newspaper reported—but there are no official statistics, and murders of women often go unreported or are falsely labeled suicides or accidents.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

India Grapples with the Future of Gas Stoves

In an effort to curb air pollution in India—especially inside homes—health advocates have long pushed for a transition from cooking with stoves that burn wood or dung to stoves that use liquefied petroleum gas.

However: A recent multicenter study found no statistically significant health benefits for children in homes with gas stoves—despite a marked improvement in the homes’ air quality.

Current debate:

Critics are calling for a pivot to alternatives like electricity, which could provide broader environmental and health benefits.

But proponents say India’s grid is not ready for such expansion—and argue that the air quality improvement is reason enough to invest in the expansion of gas stoves.

Science

OPPORTUNITY

QUICK HITS

How the World Health Organization can thrive without the United States – Nature (commentary)

10 Things to Know About U.S. Funding for Global Health – KFF Global Health Policy

Syria landmine crisis spirals as millions begin to return home – Halo Trust (news release)

‘I could feel the worms’: Neglected victims of Loiasis find hope in a remote research station – The Telegraph

How Sudan virus binds to human cells – University of Minnesota Medical School via ScienceDaily

This program in Nigeria sends children from the streets into the classroom – The Christian Science Monitor

BMJ study calls for maximisation of women’s potential in healthcare – The Guardian

Issue No. 2670

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World Health Organization: World News in Brief: US executive orders continue, killings in Sudan, breast cancer alert in Africa, human rights in Tunisia

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

New executive orders issued by the White House are set to further impact the cooperative, multilateral work of the United Nations, two weeks since the United States declared that it was pulling out of the UN health agency, WHO.

World Health Organization: Explainer: How family planning saves lives

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 07:00:00 -0500

Sakina Sani was married off when she was 12 years old amid conflict and food shortages in northern Nigeria. She became pregnant at 15 but miscarried and then had two children in rapid succession.

Global Health Now: Global Health NOW: Sudan’s Surgeons Go Underground; Truck Stop Education; and Mosquito Magnetism

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 09:48:32 -0500

Global Health NOW: Sudan’s Surgeons Go Underground; Truck Stop Education; and Mosquito Magnetism

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February 4, 2025


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Sudan’s Surgeons Go Underground

In north Darfur, indiscriminate violence and continuous shelling—including attacks on hospitals—have devastated the health care infrastructure, forcing the area’s last standing hospital, the Al-Saudi Maternal Teaching Hospital, to perform surgeries in underground bunkers, Drop Site News reports.

The hospital, in the besieged town of Al-Fasher, has been attacked 15 times, including a drone attack on the hospital that killed 70+ people on January 24.

Medics perform up to 12 surgeries a day by flashlight in nearby shelters built out of abandoned UN shipping containers and buried under sandbags.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands and fueled the world’s largest displacement crisis—uprooting more than 14 million people. Half of Sudan’s population, ~24.6 million people, face high levels of acute food insecurity, MSF reports, calling on international donors, the UN, and Sudan’s warring parties to take “immediate action to prevent death and starvation.”

“The failure to act is a choice, and it’s killing people,” says Marcella Kraay, MSF’s emergency coordinator.

Impact of Trump orders: Sudden stop-work orders from the Trump administration last week came at a devastating time for Sudan, interrupting vital aid operations for severely malnourished children at a half dozen U.S.-funded medical facilities in Sudan, ProPublica reports in an article detailing the impact of the interruptions—despite the Trump administration’s follow-up announcements ostensibly allowing lifesaving operations to proceed.

Aid workers—realizing that compliance with the stop-work order would mean that up to 100 babies and toddlers would die—“chose the children,” and continued to do their job.

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES

The Latest

One-Liners

~160 cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and five deaths have been reported in Pune, India, since early January; the illnesses have been traced to Campylobacter jejuni, a bacterium linked to foodborne illnesses and GBS. BBC

U.S. CDC webpages that include data on gender identity and LGBTQ issues remain inaccessible, following an executive order by President Trump targeting the topics; public health and medical experts have decried the disappearance of information needed to protect the health of marginalized populations. CIDRAP

People who have microplastics or nanoplastics embedded in fatty plaques in their blood vessels had a 4.5X greater risk of heart attacks, strokes, or death over a three-year period than patients who were plastic-free, according to a small study published in NEJM today. STAT

Lung cancer in people who have never smoked is now believed to be the fifth highest cause of global cancer deaths; adenocarcinoma is the main cancer among never-smokers, and ~200,000 adenocarcinoma cases were linked to air pollution in 2022, per the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The Guardian

Trump Transition News

Senate committee to vote today on RFK Jr.'s nomination – CBS News

RFK Jr. misled the US Senate on measles deaths, Samoa’s health chief says – AP

The Status of President Trump’s Pause of Foreign Aid and Implications for PEPFAR and other Global Health Programs - KFF Global Health Policy Watch (commentary)

USAID may be reorganized, absorbed by the State Department, Rubio says – Devex

Removal of DEI content from a microbiology group’s website shows reach of Trump executive orders – STAT

HIV/AIDS

Truck Stop Education

India’s truck drivers are a high-risk group for HIV, with a prevalence rate 7X times higher than India’s national average.

In an effort to bring down rates, a foundation set up by the country’s largest tire manufacturer has enlisted commercial sex workers at truck stops to help with HIV prevention efforts—with the workers educating drivers about risks, symptoms, and treatment.

Since 2022, the foundation has focused on recruiting 100+ transgender sex workers as part of its efforts, allowing it to reach 100,000+ truck drivers.

Both the sex workers and the truckers are marginalized groups, which fosters mutual trust, say advocates.

The Guardian

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES

HUMAN RIGHTS

Trans Women Face a Move to Men’s Prisons

Incarcerated trans people are facing a “precarious” future following the White House executive order that directs the Bureau of Prisons to ensure “that males are not detained in women’s prisons.”

The order also prohibits inmates from receiving gender-affirming health care using federal funds.

So far: Attorneys have received reports of trans women being removed from the general population of some women’s facilities and sequestered in separate units.

Risks: The Bureau of Prisons’ 2022 manual on trans inmates stated that trans women living in men’s prisons face a disproportionate risk of violence and sexual assault.

That previously-public manual has since been removed from the bureau’s website.

First challenge: Last week, a trans woman in federal custody filed the first lawsuit challenging the executive order.

The Intercept

ZIKA

Mosquito Magnetism

While Zika has gained powerful traction over the last decade, scientists are just beginning to understand why it’s so transmissible. One big reason: It changes human skin to become more mosquito-friendly.

“Zika virus isn’t just passively transmitted, but it actively manipulates human biology to ensure its survival,” said the study’s co-lead author Noushin Emami.

Genetic sabotage: Researchers found that the Zika virus targets dermal fibroblasts—which typically facilitate skin protection and wound repair. But the virus genetically alters the protective barrier, turning it into a “magnet for mosquitoes” to boost transmission.

Implications: The insights could help scientists “unlock new strategies” like genetic interventions to disrupt mosquito-attracting signals.

Salon

QUICK HITS

Conflict in eastern DRC hampers fight against mpox – Africa CDC – The East African

Bird flu crisis enters new phase – Axios

Here is how we know that vaccines do not cause autism – STAT

Study Finds More Than 300 Juveniles Were Shot by Police Between 2015 and 2020, One-Third of Them Fatally – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Five ways to bridge the 'know–do' continuum in global health – Nature Human Behaviour (commentary)

The long quest for artificial blood – The New Yorker

Families buy more sugary cereal if advertising targets kids, not adults – NPR Shots

Issue No. 2669

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