U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe: United States Provides US$45 million in Response to Increased Food Insecurity in Zimbabwe “The United States government announced US$45 million in funding to respond to the critical food security situation in the upcoming lean season between October 2019 and March 2020 in Zimbabwe. The contribution, provided…

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases: D.R. Congo and Nigeria: New neglected tropical disease threats and solutions for the bottom 40% Peter Hotez, founding editor-in-chief of PLOS NTDs, director at the Center for Vaccine Development at the Texas Children’s Hospital, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of…

Reuters: South Africa puts initial universal health care cost at $17 billion “South Africa published its draft National Health Insurance (NHI) bill on Thursday, with one senior official estimating universal health care for millions of poorer citizens would cost about 256 billion rand ($16.89 billion) to implement by 2022. The…

Reuters: Ebola outbreak scuttles haj plans for Congo’s Muslims “Saudi Arabia has banned pilgrims from the Democratic Republic of Congo because of an Ebola outbreak, dashing the hopes of many Muslims there wanting to perform haj” (Chaudhry, 8/8). Xinhua News: WHO to continue support DRC in fighting against Ebola “Ali…

New Yorker: Is Ebola Evolving Into a More Deadly Virus? Richard Preston, author “This July, the World Health Organization declared that an outbreak of Ebola in the provinces of Ituri and North-Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a ‘public health emergency of international concern.’ This particular…

The Guardian: Burundi malaria outbreak at epidemic levels as half of population infected “A serious outbreak of malaria in Burundi has reached epidemic proportions, killing almost as many people as the Ebola crisis in the nearby Democratic Republic of the Congo. The outbreak in the tiny Great Lakes country has…

Agence France-Presse: DRC medics arrested over murder of WHO Ebola doctor “Three Congolese medics have been detained over the murder of a World Health Organization (WHO) doctor who was fighting an Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, a military prosecutor said on Wednesday. Cameroonian doctor Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung…

Fred Hutch: In Uganda: Treating twin threats of HIV and cancer Gary Gilliland, president and director at Fred Hutch, discusses a recent trip he took with Sue Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to Uganda to visit the Uganda Cancer Institute-Fred Hutch Cancer Centre, where…

Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.: Sahel — Regional overview (July 2019) In this piece, FAO provides an overview of food insecurity and malnutrition in the Sahel region, including the organization’s planned response from July to December 2019, the response to date since 2018, and the region’s challenges facing…

CNN: A quarter of world’s population are living with extreme water stress “A quarter of the world’s population is living in regions of extremely high water stress — with ‘once unthinkable’ water crises becoming common, researchers have said. With the climate crisis biting, 17 countries — home to one in…