UNAIDS: New HIV infections rising in Latin America — key populations particularly affected “Although several countries in Latin America have shown impressive declines in HIV incidence, the number of new HIV infections in the region increased by 7% between 2010 and 2018, with 100,000 people contracting HIV in 2018. ……

U.S. Food and Drug Administration: FDA allows marketing of first rapid diagnostic test for detecting Ebola virus antigens “[Thursday,] the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed marketing of a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to detect Ebola virus antigens (proteins) in human blood from certain living individuals and samples from certain…

The Telegraph: Anti-gay laws linked to low levels of HIV testing in Africa “Poor uptake of HIV diagnosis and treatment among gay men in Africa may be linked to government crackdowns on homosexuality, a paper has found. The research, published in the Lancet HIV journal, analyzed data from 75 studies…

CIDRAP News: WHO notes Ebola shift to rural areas, posing new challenges “In its latest snapshot of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) said there’s a clear shift away from densely populated urban areas toward sparsely populated rural areas. And in other…

Associated Press: Tanzania rejects suspicions that it covered up Ebola cases “Tanzania on Thursday rejected suspicions that it might have covered up cases of the deadly Ebola virus, calling it a plot to show the country ‘in a bad light.’ The health minister’s comments came after the World Health Organization…

The Mast: U.S., Zambia sign partnership to end TB “The United States and Zambia have signed the Tuberculosis Accelerator Statement of Partnership to end TB in Zambia. The Statement of Partnership represents a joint approach to achieve Zambia’s 2022 United Nations High Level Meeting TB targets: 1) treat over 200,000…

The Telegraph: The superbug threat is a race against time — we need to pick up the pace to find a rapid test Daniel Berman, global health lead at Nesta Challenges “…We need a complete reset of our relationship with antibiotics. This includes a more disciplined approach to getting test…

Devex: Kenya learns from its neighbors with HPV vaccine rollout (Jerving, 10/4). The Lancet: Polio returns to the Philippines (Thornton, 10/5). NPR: After Hurricane Dorian, The ‘Wikipedia Of Maps’ Came To The Rescue (Lu, 10/3). The Telegraph: Saliva tests to diagnose malaria one step closer as researchers get £1m for…

Wall Street Journal: HIV Cases Soar in the Philippines, as Dating Apps Spread “…The estimated number of new infections in this Southeast Asian nation has more than doubled from 2013 through 2018, reaching epidemic proportions among young men, according to the United Nations’ AIDS agency. … [H]ealth advocates think a…

Scientific American: Five Interventions for Treating Multidrug-Resistant TB Ifeanyi Nsofor, medical doctor, CEO of EpiAFRIC, and director of policy and advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch “…The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved an oral combination for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). … This novel drug combination could be…