Al Jazeera: Philippines: Vaccine scare blamed for deadly measles outbreak “Health officials in the Philippines are racing to contain a deadly measles outbreak the government blames on a marked decline in immunisations after a scandal surrounding a dengue fever vaccine…” (Gotinga, 2/12). Bloomberg: Widening Anti-Vaccine Movement Paves the Way for…

FT Health: Combating cancer; Brexit and E.U. medicine verification The latest issue of the Financial Times’ weekly global health newsletter discusses efforts to address cancer, the world’s second leading cause of death, and features an interview with Hugh Pullen, president of the European Medicines Verification Organisation, discussing the launch of…

BBC News: Tanzania male MPs face circumcision call to stop HIV spread (2/8). Bloomberg: Ray Washburne to Resign From Overseas Private Investment Corp. March 1 (Jacobs, 2/10). Bloomberg: China’s Potential HIV Contamination Revives Drug Safety Fears (Wei/Einhorn, 2/11). CIDRAP News: Saudi Arabia reports more MERS in Wadi ad-Dawasir outbreak (Schnirring,…

Devex: New index raises concerns about aid quality outside DFID “Aid money spent outside the U.K. Department for International Development is failing to meet good standards on poverty focus, effectiveness, and transparency, a new report has found, as DFID’s share of the aid budget continues to fall. Analysis by the…

The Guardian: Billions of U.K. aid failing to reduce poverty, report finds “Too much of Britain’s aid budget is being spent poorly by Whitehall departments on projects that fail the test of reducing poverty in the world’s poorest countries, a campaign group has said. The ONE Campaign — an advocacy…

American Council on Science and Health: The U.K. Plan: Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance David Shlaes, member of the American Council on Science and Health Scientific Advisory Panel and president of Anti-Infectives Consulting, LLC, discusses the U.K.’s recently released five-year plan for addressing antimicrobial resistance, particularly the plan’s approach to addressing the…

Foreign Policy: Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy, Long May It Reign Rachel Vogelstein, Douglas Dillon senior fellow and the director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Alexandra Bro, research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations “…In 2014, Sweden became the first country…

The Independent: Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt under fire after describing U.K.’s foreign aid target as ‘unsustainable’ “Minister Penny Mordaunt is under fire from MPs after warning Theresa May’s cabinet the U.K.’s foreign aid budget target is ‘unsustainable.’ The international development secretary told colleagues on Tuesday that the government should shift…

Financial Times: U.K. shows leadership on anti-microbial resistance Editorial Board “…The potentially most transformative element [to address the market failure around antimicrobial resistance (AMR)] is a new pricing model pilot that changes the way the U.K. National Health Service purchases antibiotics. It will pay drug developers upfront, based on how…

Devex: DFID ‘not an independent department,’ says Mordaunt “United Kingdom aid chief Penny Mordaunt raised eyebrows last week after declining to give a firm answer about whether her department would still exist in five years’ time. … Asked by Financial Times reporters last week whether her department would definitely exist…