In The News

Ebola Outbreak as Global Emergency: STAT

Helen Branswell July 19, 2019
Public health providers have battled Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a year, with cases also reported in Uganda and near Rwanda, and the World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency, the fifth such declaration in its history. A strategic plan to stem the outbreak could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. “The declaration, which critics have contended is...

Vaping More Dangerous Than First Realized: Vox

Julia Belluz July 12, 2019
Using smokeless tobacco use is healthier than smoked tobacco, and marketing relies on that premise. But that does not mean smokeless tobacco carries no risk, and public health experts express concerns that the products include a range of additives and aerosol particles, with marketing that targets youth: “[R]esearchers around the world are now scrambling to figure out what impact this new habit...

Ebola Crisis: Council on Foreign Relations

Claire Felter June 20, 2019
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo officially started in August of 2018, in the northeastern regions of the country bordering Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan. Claiming more than 1,300 deaths, with cases doubling in the past three months, the Ebola crisis is escalating but remains second place to the 2014-2016 outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people. The World Health...

Depression in Poor Nations: Guardian

Tina Rosenberg June 8, 2019
Many experts once assumed that mental illness, especially, depression was concentrated in wealthy nations. In the 1990s, Vikram Patel, psychiatrist and researcher, set out to study if depression in Zimbabwe and other poor countries was actually a response to deprivation and injustice – conditions stemming from colonisation.” Traditional healers in Zimbabwe described “kufungisisa,” or excessive...

New York Times: US Opposition to Breastfeeding at World Forum

Andrew Jacobs July 8, 2018
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend breastfeeding for the first six months of life “to achieve optimal growth, development, and health.” US delegates defied longstanding research on infant nutrition at the UN-affiliated World Health Assembly in an attempt to weaken a breastfeeding resolution. “American officials sought to water down the resolution by...

New York Times: Improve a Billion Lives With Eyeglasses

Andrew Jacobs May 10, 2018
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly diseases are at the forefront of global health crises. This had allowed certain widespread health issues to be overlooked. Poor vision and lack of access to eyeglasses, while not necessarily fatal, afflicts more than a billion people worldwide. Eye exams and eyeglasses can be very expensive, while the resources allotted to improving vision care in...

CNN: Black Death Spread by Humans, Vindicating Rats

Meera Senthilingam January 17, 2018
“Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas,” reports the World Health Organization. “It is transmitted between animals through fleas. Humans can be infected through.” The Black Death pandemic occurring sporadically from the 14th to 19th centuries was not spread by rats, as once assumed, but through...