Global Health

Only a fraction of the presumed cases in five countries have led to positive tests for anthrax. Some scientists say other causes cannot yet be ruled out.

Some babies born with devastating birth defects from the mosquito-borne illness are 7 now, but Covid turned the world’s attention away.

The new agreement makes Aspen Pharmacare the first African company to market a Covid vaccine on the continent. But it stops short of allowing Aspen to make the ingredients in the vaccine.

Dr. Nkengasong will be the first person of African origin to oversee the U.S. government program combating H.I.V., which has ravaged the continent.

Researchers ended a large trial in South Africa after finding that an experimental vaccine offered little protection.

Aid agencies are scrambling to get oxygen equipment to low-income countries where the coronavirus is rapidly spreading.

Privately, Chinese doctors say they need outside expertise. But Beijing, without saying why, has shown no interest so far.

After more than 30 years of research, 1.7 million people are still infected each year with the virus that causes AIDS.

Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result.

Stores are selling out of masks, and health care workers risk infection if they cannot get the protective gear.

In many poor countries, older surgeons resist being questioned, and operations are more often emergencies, which leaves less time to review checklists.

The new coronavirus doesn’t appear to be readily spread by humans, but researchers caution that more study is needed.

Almost as many people are falling ill as did two years ago, in what was a particularly severe flu season. But this season’s virus is unusual, and it’s too early to tell how dangerous.

A new government program will provide donated drugs through major drugstore chains.

Thousands of infants are doomed to early deaths each year, in part because pediatric medicines come in hard pills or bitter syrups that need refrigeration.

About 80 million people with diabetes around the world need the hormone, and half of them can’t afford it. Creating competition could help, the agency said.

In an unexpected lawsuit, federal officials claim that Gilead Sciences willfully disregarded government patents on medicines necessary to end the AIDS epidemic.

There are 10 million new cases each year of tuberculosis, now the leading infectious cause of death worldwide. Even a partly effective vaccine could help turn the tide.

Predict, a government research program, sought to identify animal viruses that might infect humans and to head off new pandemics.

New cases are down to 15 a week from a high of 128 in April, but outbreaks are still popping up in remote and dangerous mining areas.

Carrion flies inside your hood. Sweat turns your gloves into water balloons. This is tough work, but it could predict disease outbreaks.

In 2017, a terrible flu season in Australia presaged an American outbreak in which 79,000 died. Experts advise getting the shot soon.

Two antibiotics, taken for a month, can stop a leading killer. But “when it’s for TB, people just sort of shrug.”

On tour in Africa, American officials said the U.S. would keep providing aid. But Congo’s response has been uneven, and the former health minister has been jailed.

The drug regimens can be grueling, and patients often quit taking their medications. But turning it into a cellphone competition helps.

“Polypills” of generic drugs may dramatically reduce heart attacks and strokes in poor countries, a new study suggests. Some experts still aren’t enthusiastic.

Once, a diagnosis of extensively drug-resistant TB meant quick death. A three-drug regimen cures most patients in just months.

The therapies saved roughly 90 percent of the patients who were newly infected, a turning point in the decades-long fight against the virus.

After the resignation of the country’s health minister, the president will take over the response to the epidemic and distribute a new vaccine.

In preliminary tests, a matchstick-size rod containing a new drug offered promise as a shield against the virus. But a large clinical trial must still be done.

Hemorrhagic fever inspires almost mythic terror, but whether it can be beaten depends more on people than on medical advances.

False rumors that children are fainting or dying have led parents to turn away vaccinators, threatening the campaign to eradicate the disease.

An analysis covering 66 million young people has found plummeting rates of precancerous lesions and genital warts after vaccination against the human papillomavirus.

Burrowing skin mites drive victims mad with itching, but distribution of a few pills can drive the infestation from entire communities.

The pharmaceutical industry once sued to keep AIDS drugs from dying Africans. Now companies boast of their efforts to get medicines to the developing world.

Even with more than 1,400 dead, the W.H.O. says the risk of the disease spreading beyond the region remains low and declaring an emergency could have backfired.

The hormone shot — popular among African women who must use birth control in secret — is as safe as other methods, scientists reported.

African green monkeys survived infection with the Nipah virus after they received remdesivir. The virus, a pandemic threat carried by bats, has killed dozens of people in Asia.

Paralysis cases spiked after a vaccination drive was derailed by false rumors that dozens of children had collapsed and died.

Warming weather usually slows transmission of the virus, but it is not clear that this outbreak is fading, experts said.

A new study ranks the risks in U.S. counties by the numbers of unvaccinated children and proximity to international airports. But no one predicted the outbreak in Brooklyn.

The manufacturer will provide enough of the drug to supply 200,000 patients annually for more than a decade. Critics said it would not be enough to end the AIDS epidemic and questioned the company’s motives.

As violence makes it harder to reach stricken villages in Congo, experts plan to stretch supplies and to give the vaccine to everyone, not just contacts of victims.

The agency placed restrictions on who can get the vaccine, Dengvaxia. Its use overseas has lagged amid concerns over rare safety risks.

The outbreak is now the worst in decades. Children under age 5 account for about half of the cases.

Devout parents who are worried about vaccines often object to ingredients from pigs or fetuses. But the leaders of major faiths have examined these fears and still vigorously endorse vaccination.

The outbreak, linked to skepticism about vaccines, has led to extraordinary measures, including $1,000 fines and bans on unvaccinated children in public.

Despite the vaccine’s drawbacks, the W.H.O. endorsed testing on 360,000 children, in an effort to lower death rates in Africa.

A hand-held device brings medical imaging to remote communities, often for the first time.

Mandatory vaccination is rare, but it has been done — and upheld by the courts. While judges have allowed health officials to fine citizens for refusing, forced vaccinations are highly unusual.

Following intensive vaccination efforts, measles cases plunged across the world. Now clusters of new infections — some linked, some not — have confounded health officials.

About two million people are displaced, cholera has broken out, and malaria is expected. But doses of cholera vaccine have arrived, and the humanitarian crisis may yet be contained, aid agencies say.

What appeared to be a cyst in a healthy fetus turned out to be an unformed twin “absorbed” early in pregnancy, connected by a second umbilical cord and still growing.

The “London patient,” apparently cured of H.I.V. infection, has gotten all the attention. But other recently revealed advances are more likely to affect the immediate course of the AIDS epidemic.

On a continent wracked with epidemics, millions turn to traditional healers. In rural Uganda, not far from the Ebola zone, an herbalist describes his practice.

Minuscule particles coated with anti-seizure drugs seem to halt microbes that feed on brain tissue.

The Zika virus must take the “side roads” into the placenta to infect a fetus, one researcher said — but the Rift Valley fever virus takes the “expressway.”

The discovery was part of a U.S.-led effort to spot dangerous pathogens in animals before humans are endangered.

In Vanuatu, 20 percent of children miss their shots because villages are so hard to reach. It has hired an Australian company to fly them in.

The W.H.O. has recommended such a test for H.I.V.-positive patients since 2015. But in poor countries, few qualifying patients are receiving it.

Malaria quickly kills toddlers. But rapid diagnostic tests, a new suppository drug and bicycle ambulances can buy enough time to get stricken children to hospitals.

Already used in Western countries, hydroxyurea eased painful episodes in African children with the condition. It also reduced the risk of malaria infection.

A vaccine and new treatments are on hand, but the outbreak is in an area rife with unpredictable gunfire, bandits and suspicion of outsiders.

Money is just the obvious obstacle. A few diseases, like H.I.V., so far have outwitted both the immune system and scientists.

Deaths from the disease plummeted from 2000 to 2013, but are now stuck at over 400,000 a year. Donor giving is flat, and some countries are not doing enough to protect their citizens.

Parasites transmitted by tsetse flies travel to the brain, causing paranoia, fury and death. Until now, killing them required hospitalization and harsh drugs.

Canines can sniff out the socks worn by children carrying the mosquito-borne parasites, a study found.

More than half of the patients who received treatment survived, scientists reported.

Serving from 1990 to 2006, the four retired officials discussed how they were muzzled for giving medical advice that was unpopular — though time proved them right.

Snakes kill or cripple 500,000 people a year, but antivenins are costly and rare in poor countries. Now scientists are testing injectable nanoparticles that neutralize venom.

Among the dead were 180 babies, children and teenagers, more than in any year since the C.D.C. began tracking pediatric deaths.

Local fighting and fleeing patients led the organization to increase its alert level. The disease has appeared in a Congolese fishing village near Uganda.

Active infections kill 4,000 people a day worldwide, more than AIDS does. But the notion that a quarter of the global population harbors silent tuberculosis is “a fundamental misunderstanding.”

Unless the $3 billion spent annually on research triples, the world may not be able to invent vaccines or rapid cures for many ills of the poor.

New cases are dropping sharply, vaccination is going well and schools are about to open. But it is too soon to declare victory, experts said.

Twitter accounts that were used to meddle in the 2016 presidential election also sent both pro- and anti-vaccine messages and insulted parents.

The Asian long-horned tick, reported in New York’s suburbs and as far west as Arkansas, can carry lethal diseases. But no infected specimens have yet been found here.

Dried or powdered centipedes are used in Chinese traditional medicine. But uncooked specimens may contain a parasite that infects the brain, scientists report.

The outbreak, the first in which a new vaccine was quickly rolled out, was extinguished in less than three months, with 33 deaths.

A Liberian woman recovered after tending to her dying brother, but infected her family a year later. Being pregnant may have reignited the virus in her.