Global Health

Global wishes for 2024: Pay for family leave. Empower Black men. Respect rural voices

12:25pm January 04, 2024

by NPR Staff

We asked leaders in global health and development to share their wishes for the new year. Here's what they hope will happen in the year ahead. And readers, we'd like to hear from you.

Climate-influenced disasters are making people sick. When wildfire smoke from massive fires in Canada blanketed the U.S. in the summer of 2023, emergency rooms saw a spike in admissions for lung problems but also heart attacks and other health issues.

Climate change, fossil fuels hurting people's health, says new global report

6:30pm November 14, 2023

by Alejandra Borunda

The latest Lancet Countdown, an annual analysis from the prestigious medical journal, underscores the vast and growing costs of fossil fuel burning on health.

Ambassador-at-Large John Nkengasong, who will lead the State Department's Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, speaks to the press about the new agency. He told NPR that the pandemic "taught us three key lessons. We are collectively more connected than we thought. We are more vulnerable than we thought. And we have [vast] inequities" when it comes to disease threats.

A new U.S. agency is a response to the fact that nobody was ready for the pandemic

7:31pm August 03, 2023

by Sacha Pfeiffer

The Bureau of Global Health, Security and Diplomacy, housed in the State Department, will plan for the next pandemic. We interviewed its director, virologist and global health leader John Nkengasong.

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The World Health Organization led this measles vaccination campaign in India in 1974 — reflecting its mission "to promote and protect the health of all peoples."

8 bold agenda items for the World Health Organization as it turns 75

12:26pm April 06, 2023

by Ari Daniel

Pay more attention to teens, ethics, the planet, long COVID and more. NPR asks public health leaders what this U.N.-created agency should add to its docket in this anniversary year.

Mwele Malecela targeted diseases that afflict the poor and disadvantaged and always wanted to give the locals a voice in any programs or strategies.

Health & Safety

In memoriam: Female trailblazers who leapt over barriers to fight for their sisters

5:49pm December 30, 2022

They were pioneers in their fields, working to improve the health and lives of other women and paving the way for other female scientists.

Aspergillus fumigatus can infect the lungs, causing pneumonia-like symptoms that can progress into more severe sickness.

Health & Safety

WHO releases list of threatening fungi. The most dangerous might surprise you

3:14pm October 26, 2022

by Max Barnhart

Invasive, deadly fungi are on the rise. In its first-ever Fungal Priority Pathogen List, the World Health Organization says these are the most important.

Twin sisters Tripti and Pari, who lost both their parents to COVID-19, play at a relative's home in Bhopal, India on May 11, 2021. A new study estimates that 8 million kids lost a parent or primary caregiver to a pandemic-related cause.

Health & Safety

Nearly 8 million kids lost a parent or primary caregiver to the pandemic

4:09pm September 06, 2022

by Rhitu Chatterjee

A new study finds numbers far higher than previously thought. India has the greatest number of kids affected. The U.S. has 250,000 kids in this category but lags behind in aid for bereaved families.

Ibrahim Songne, an immigrant from Burkina Faso, opened a pizza spot called IBRIS in the Italian town of Trento. He overcame local prejudices — and now has been named to a list of the world's top 50 pizzerias.

Health & Safety

Whatever happened to the African-born pizza chef who won over biased Italians?

8:25am September 03, 2022

by Ian Brennan

Ibrahim Songne overcame local prejudice to gain success in Italy with his pizza joint and a spot on a list of top 50 global pizza joints. He's now made a special pizza in honor of ... Goats and Soda!

Sikhulile Moyo, the laboratory director at the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute and a research associate with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, headed the team that identified the omicron variant.

Whatever happened to the Botswana scientist who identified omicron — then caught it?

4:53pm September 02, 2022

by Melody Schreiber

Sikhulile Moyo led the team that first identified omicron — and was dismayed by the world's reaction — blaming and blacklisting African nations. He's now a bit more optimistic.

Left to right: Nazia, Mubina and Leila saw their homes washed away in the flooding. They now share a tent at a technical college that has been converted into a camp for displaced people.

Mothers tell how Pakistan's monsoon floods have upended their lives

11:09am September 02, 2022

by Diaa Hadid

In the city of Nowshera, tent cities for flood refugees are springing up on college campuses. At one such haven, mothers spoke to NPR about their struggle to survive.