The WHO’s Stop TB Department released data on Thursday at the 40th Union World Conference on Lung Health indicating that the number of new active TB cases worldwide rose from 9.27 million in 2007 to 9.4 million in 2008, Reuters reports. Experts gathered for the conference in Cancun, Mexico “called for more research funding to develop better diagnostic tests, vaccines and drugs for tuberculosis, which killed 1.8 million people around the world last year,” according to the news service.

During Surprise Stop In Yemen, Sec. Clinton To Highlight U.S. Commitment To Country’s Development U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Yemen Tuesday “on a diplomatically sensitive mission to broaden America’s relationship with this impoverished Arab country, a haven for Al Qaeda that has nurtured several recent terror…

On the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday, the General Assembly of the Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) gathered to discuss the continent’s progress against HIV/AIDS, Walta Info reports.

“A rise in global funding for research into neglected diseases needs to be matched by a continued focus on delivering practical new ways to curb sickness in the developing world,” according to the third annual report by the Global Funding of Innovation for Neglected Diseases (G-FINDER) released on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

IRIN/PlusNews Examines Efforts To Integrate HIV/AIDS Treatment And Maternal, Child Health Care IRIN/PlusNews examines Kenya’s efforts to integrate maternal and child health care and HIV/AIDS services as a way to ensure more pregnant women and mothers living with HIV/AIDS receive the treatment they need. The article describes the success of…

“A generation of babies could be born free of AIDS if the international community stepped up efforts to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and social protection, the United Nations said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports. The declaration came on the eve of World AIDS Day, as U.N. leaders released a new report (.pdf), which found “millions of women and children, particularly in poor countries, fall through the cracks of HIV services either due to their gender, social or economic status, location or education,” according to the news service (Kelland, 11/30).

Lancet Comment Examines Interconnectedness Of Global Health, Public Health “Global health and public health are indistinguishable,” according to a Lancet Comment that examines the interconnectedness of the fields. “Yet global health is still often perceived as international aid, technologies, and interventions flowing from the wealthier countries of the global north…

CNN examines the work of a Harvard University chemistry professor to “shrink a medical laboratory onto a piece of paper that’s the size of a fingerprint and costs about a penny.” According to George Whitesides, who created a prototype of the inexpensive paper “chip,” the technology could be used to diagnose such diseases as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries.

Thousands of HIV/AIDS advocates “marched through Vienna’s city centre on Tuesday evening, demanding more respect for human rights in the fight against HIV,” Agence France-Presse reports.

Media outlets continued to reflect on news from the International AIDS Conference-AIDS 2010, which attracted over 19,000 participants from 193 countries to Vienna last week, according to the conference blog.