Soon after the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Pakistan, in March, 2020, the government shut down all non-essential services, including outpatient care for an array of diseases not requiring emergency treatment. As a result, Médecins Sans Frontières was forced to…
Bangladesh’s Second Public Health Photo Contest winners reveal stark public health challenges—from food insecurity, to the lack of housing options in megacities like Dhaka, to the scarcity of safe drinking water. They also illuminate—in vivid, vibrant detail—photography’s…
Enteric parasites transmitted via soil are a major contributor to disease worldwide, but a simple household intervention—finished flooring—may reduce their prevalence, according to a new study in rural Bangladesh and Kenya. Living in a household with finished floors—such…
Neglected tropical diseases—a group of parasitic, bacterial, and viral infections affecting more than 1.7 billion people globally—have held back human progress for millennia, disabling, debilitating, and causing early death if left untreated. Yet NTDs struggle to attract…
81,003. That’s the number of overdose deaths the CDC recorded in the 12 months leading up to last June as lockdowns upended lives and gutted addiction treatment services. It was the most ever recorded in the US in a 12-month period.
A new WHO plan to combat 20 neglected diseases that plague 1.7 billion people in low-resource countries seeks to rally attention for NTDs even as COVID-19 threatens to roll back progress,
There is precious little research about hookworm in the US these days, but that doesn’t mean it’s not circulating. Researchers who study the parasites—known to thrive with moist climates and poor sanitation—chiefly focus on Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
The World Health Assembly made bold moves against neglected tropical diseases this week, replacing a 2012 blueprint that is not on track to reach its targets, WHO
In a world of gloomy global health news, progress against the leading cause of contagious and irreversible blindness—trachoma—is heartening. The WHO has reported a remarkable 91% reduction in people at risk of contracting the neglected tropical disease since 2002.
Is COVID-19 really a strange and unpredictable disease—or is public perception of its inherent qualities skewed by its massive scale and the rapt attention it commands? asks Ed Yong.
