epidemic

More than half of people living with HIV have unsuppressed viral loads, and about 9.4 million are likely unaware that they are HIV positive, a UNAIDS report released Friday revealed—showing that the epidemic is far from over.

The unprecedented response to the AIDS epidemic is often viewed as the inaugural moment of the young field of global health. But “it is an error to assign a single disease as its point of origin,” writes Richard Horton—doing so obscures the power dynamics that underlie…

Diabetes cases among the 60% of Guatemalans who belong to the indigenous population “may be of epidemic proportion,” according to a new study that found rates almost double a 2003 estimate.

The opioid crisis is the deadliest drug epidemic in US history, but we’ve seen similar scenarios before, writes the New York Times editorial board. With 19th century morphine, “like today, the medical community was largely responsible for the epidemic.” And with AIDS in…

MSF is closing most of its 37 cholera treatment centers in Yemen as its cholera epidemic subsides.   The clinics saw 567 new patients in the 2nd week of October, compared to 11,139 in June, at the outbreak’s peak. Of 884,368 suspected cases in 6 months, 2,184 have been…

An Indiana county has halted a needle exchange program doling out clean syringes to drug users. Flouting evidence of their efficacy, commissioners voted against the program on moral grounds, citing the Bible.   Critics argue needle exchanges enable drug users. In 1998,…

To get ahead of epidemics, speedy emergency vaccines are key. Ebola killed 8,000 before experimental vaccines arrived in West Africa in January 2015.  Emergency vaccines should be in the works 3 or 4 months into an outbreak. “It’s... tight. But it’s do-able,” says…

To understand the diversity of endemic tuberculosis in Cameroon’s cattle and how it spreads, researchers at The Roslin Institute conducted the largest molecular epidemiological study in a sub-Saharan African country.

The Philippine government’s war on drugs has overshadowed another harrowing problem: increased incidence of HIV, in what the WHO calls one of the fastest growing epidemics in the world.   4 underlying factors are driving the spike, writes author Alex Adia. Filipinos are…

By funding science-based policymaking, US foreign aid has the potential to combat cross-border problems such as famine and epidemics that foster poverty, conflict and disease, argue Nature editors. But proposed budget cuts to the State Department and USAID could gut…