Financial Times: Africa’s health crisis needs a focus on systems, not people Adebayo Alonge, co-founder of RxAll “…Health care systems in Africa have been tailored to fight diseases like malaria and tuberculosis and were not built to handle the rise of non-communicable diseases such as respiratory illnesses and cancer. ……

Newsweek: How AI can help Africa get universal health care before America “…Efforts to increase [health] coverage are underway: From Rwanda to South Africa, telemedicine and artificial intelligence have enabled health tech platforms to emerge, and allowed doctors to treat patients in under-resourced areas remotely, efficiently, and cheaply via mobile…

Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program’s “New Security Beat”: Unequal Women, Insecure World: The State of the World’s Population in the Age of Inequality Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba, assistant professor at Rhodes College and non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, discusses results from the UNFPA’s State of the…

Devex: Giving oxygen to the fight against pneumonia “…The [public-private partnership] — known as the United for Oxygen Alliance — is the first consortium working on pneumonia, and has 15 members in total, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations, Path, Philips, the Pneumonia Innovations Team, Save…

The Lancet: President Trump Editorial Board “…The winners in Trump’s America were likely to be the defense industry, oil and energy, private prisons, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Not health. What should be the response of the public health community? Document and project the impact of Trump’s policies. Identify policy alternatives. And…

Al Jazeera: Why South Africa’s plan to boost breastfeeding fails “…The updated health department infant and child feeding policy mandates that public health facilities stop providing formula milk to all new mothers, and that women receive counseling on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding. The government also has been promoting Human…

Devex: Aid groups grapple with stigmatization in HIV prophylaxis rollout “…[Pre-exposure prophylaxis’ (PrEP)] success in sub-Saharan Africa — the region with the highest burden of HIV — will hinge more on the social than the scientific, though. Researchers and advocates will have to strike a balance in how they market…

The Guardian: Innovations fund aims to save women and newborn babies in Africa “Public health experts in East Africa have hailed an initiative that will fund research on the continent in the hope of fostering African innovation. The $7m (£5.7m) Grand Challenges Africa innovation seed grants program — funded by…

Devex: Africa’s turn to pick the next WHO chief? Not so fast “African countries will play a key role in the World Health Organization’s efforts to reform global pandemic response under a new leader, to be elected in May 2017. The continent wields an impressive voting bloc — 54 of…

New York Times: Yellow Fever Epidemic in Africa Shows Gaps in Vaccine Pipeline “The yellow fever outbreak in Africa this year came closer to being a disaster than is widely recognized, public health experts recently disclosed. The epidemic also revealed glaring weaknesses in the emergency vaccine supply pipeline. … Ultimately,…