Washington Post: Obama calls wave of children across U.S.-Mexican border ‘urgent humanitarian situation’
“President Obama on Monday declared a wave of unaccompanied children across the U.S.-Mexican border an ‘urgent humanitarian situation’ and directed federal agencies to coordinate a response to provide housing and other services…” (Zezima/O’Keefe, 6/2).

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In a series of reports, BBC News examines a lack of access to palliative care in Africa.

BBC News: ‘Millions denied end-of-life drugs’
“…Lack of access to pain relief for dying patients is a ‘public health emergency,’ say experts. Figures suggest almost 18 million people — mainly in developing countries — died in unnecessary pain in 2012…” (Mazumdar, 6/2).

BBC News: Living with cancer: Betty’s story
“…Betty Naiga from Uganda was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. … Speaking before her death, Betty shared her story with the BBC’s Global Health reporter Tulip Mazumdar” (6/2).

BBC News: How Ugandan hospice makes cheap liquid morphine
“…The Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance says the restrictions on these drugs are in place because of exaggerated fears about patients becoming addicted. Hospice Africa makes all of Uganda’s liquid morphine…” (6/2).

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News outlets report on emerging technologies to address undernutrition and fight diseases, specifically through food.

The Atlantic: The Science of Designing Food for the World’s Poor
“…The Canadian government has poured $2 million in aid into the product [Mi Comidita] — a super-cereal for kids during their pivotal first two years, and specially designed for a country with the world’s fourth-highest chronic undernutrition rate for children under five. … Foods like Mi Comidita are invented to address specific micronutrient deficiencies in certain populations, and in recent years new technologies have emerged to produce such products in a more sophisticated fashion…” (Friedman, 6/2).

New York Times: Fighting Deadly Disease, With Grains of Rice
“Yoshikazu Yuki and other researchers at the University of Tokyo are bioengineering rice in a bid to turn it into an easy and low-cost storage and delivery medium for drugs to combat common infectious and contagious illnesses…” (Nagano, 6/2).

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Devex: Institutions lean on creative financing, partnerships to further disease research
“In a time when funding is harder to secure — especially for what are neglected diseases that disproportionately affect those in developing countries — the research institutions working on solutions are finding creative ways to finance progress…” (Saldinger, 5/30).

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Al Jazeera America: TB is a ‘neglected disease’ in Vietnam despite death toll
“Tuberculosis, or TB, is the world’s second-deadliest infectious disease and kills 1.4 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization. While its bacteria are easily transmitted through the air, the disease can be readily treated and cured. Yet much of the world lacks sufficient treatment. That’s the case in Vietnam…” (Gould, 5/29).

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U.N. News Centre: Late rains give rise to concerns about harvest prospects, food security in Somalia — U.N.
“The United Nations today voiced increasing concern over the food security situation in Somalia, as food stocks from the previous harvest become depleted and prices continue to rise sharply, and the country experiences late rains and erratic weather patterns. The situation is being exacerbated by conflict and inadequate funding for priority actions designed to address the needs of hard-hit communities, according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)…” (6/2).

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Agence France-Presse: Thorny abortion debate looms in Chile
“Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is fighting fierce conservative opposition to allow abortion for women and girls who are raped, carrying non-viable fetuses or facing life-threatening pregnancy complications…” (Toll, 6/2).

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VOA News: South Sudan Cholera Cases, Deaths on Rise
“Health officials in South Sudan were scrambling Monday to contain a cholera outbreak as the death toll from the diarrheal disease rose and infections were reported beyond the capital, Juba, and in other parts of Central Equatoria state and in distant Upper Nile state…” (Rwakaringi, 6/2).

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News outlets report on an ongoing outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

Agence France-Presse/News24: Sierra Leone raises Ebola death toll
“Sierra Leone raised its death toll from the highly contagious Ebola virus on Monday, sparking fears that the deadly epidemic gripping west Africa is spreading…” (6/2).

Associated Press/ABC News: Sierra Leone Ebola Outbreak Death Toll Now 5
“A British mining company says some of its personnel have left Sierra Leone amid an outbreak of the Ebola disease that has killed at least five people…” (6/3).

CIDRAP News: Ebola cases in Sierra Leone triple, to 50
“Cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Sierra Leone have more than tripled in just three days, from 16 reported on May 27 to 50 reported today by the World Health Organization (WHO). The agency also reported 10 new EVD cases in Guinea and one in Liberia…” (Wappes, 5/30).

Reuters: U.K. firm evacuates some staff from Sierra Leone over Ebola virus
“Iron ore producer London Mining has evacuated some non-essential staff from Sierra Leone and imposed travel restrictions due to an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, the company said on Tuesday…” (Fofana, 6/3).

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The Guardian: Two girls died looking for a toilet. This should make us angry, not embarrassed
Barbara Frost, chief executive of WaterAid; Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International; Corinne Woods, director of the U.N. Millennium Campaign; and Nick Alipui director of programs at UNICEF

“Two teenage girls have been gang-raped and killed after doing what half a billion women and girls are forced to do every day — go outdoors to try to find somewhere discreet to go to the toilet. … WaterAid, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization, along with hundreds of other organizations around the world, are calling for a new Sustainable Development Goal that would commit countries to ensuring that everyone everywhere has access to basic sanitation, clean drinking water, and hygiene by the year 2030. … [This] case illustrates in the starkest terms why access to sanitation and water are fundamental human rights — and why a lack of these services is putting hundreds of millions of children, girls, and women at risk each and every day” (5/31).

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Project Syndicate: Our Last Chance for a Safe Planet
Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and special adviser to the U.N. secretary general on the Millennium Development Goals

“…The last chance for action [on climate change] has arrived. That chance lies in Paris in December 2015, when the world’s governments meet for the 21st annual United Nations climate-change meeting. But this time will be different. Either governments will agree to decisive action, as they have promised, or we will look back at 2015 as the year when climate sanity slipped through our fingers…” (5/28).

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The Guardian: Malnutrition in conflict: the psychological cause
Stephanie Duvergé, Action Against Hunger psychologist in the Central African Republic (CAR)

“Treating malnutrition in humanitarian crises, such as conflict and natural disaster, is far more complex than simply curing disease and providing children with therapeutic foods. Often, post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] — common in extreme situations — hinders treatment and its success. … To combat this [in CAR], malnourished children and their carers are receiving psychological and social support…” (6/2).

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The Guardian: The African cancer patients dying in unnecessary pain
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Channel 4 News correspondent

“…There are more people dying of cancer in Senegal than of malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS combined. Programs tackling infectious diseases have been effective and with longer life expectancy and more western lifestyles cancer rates are climbing. But the country is failing to give palliative care to the vast majority of people who need it and as a result cancer patients in a relatively prosperous part of west Africa are dying in pain that could easily be stopped…” (5/29).

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists”: Reflections on My Recent Travels
Melinda Gates, co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reflects on RMNCH (Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health) and issues surrounding access to abortion (6/2).

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USAID “Impact”: Why Fighting Gender Violence is Also Fighting Hunger in the DRC
Rachel Grant, division chief in East, Central and Southern Africa Office for USAID’s Office of Food for Peace, discusses how “tackling gender inequities is key to resolving any food insecurity” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (5/31).

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Frontline Health Workers Coalition: U.S. leadership for the health workforce we need post-2015
Mandy Folse, director of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition, writes, “As the Millennium Development Goals reach their target date next year, the U.S., along with country governments and other development partners, must continue to strengthen these programmatic efforts and must step up political leadership to rally the world toward ensuring we have the health workforce we need for the decades to come” (5/30).

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Health Affairs: ‘Big Push’ To Reduce Maternal Mortality In Uganda And Zambia Enhanced Health Systems But Lacked A Sustainability Plan
“…[T]he rapid pace, external design, and lack of a long-term financing plan [of the Saving Mothers, Giving Life initiative in Uganda and Zambia] hindered integration into the health system and local ownership. Sustaining and scaling up early gains of similar big push initiatives requires longer-term commitments and a clear plan for transition to national control…” (Kruk et al., June 2014).

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Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks”: When XDR-TB spread in Mumbai, “lots of togetherness” led to a path of solutions
Antigone Barton, writer and editor of “Science Speaks” and senior communications officer at the Center for Global Health Policy, writes about how Mumbai TB officer Minni Khetarpal is preventing and treating drug-resistant tuberculosis in the Indian city (6/2).

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WHO: Bulletin of the World Health Organization
The theme of the June 2014 WHO Bulletin is BRICS and global health. The issue includes several editorials, news stories, and research and policy papers on the topic (June 2014).

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