Huffington Post: 2015 in Review: Commemorating a Year of Key Global Health Achievements Ariel Pablos-Mendez, assistant administrator for global health and child and maternal survival coordinator at USAID “…For the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the broader global health community alike, 2015 was a momentous year. Today, I…

Vox: We’ve almost eradicated polio. Ironically, a big threat now is vaccines. “The world is closer than ever to eradicating polio, the horrible paralysis-inducing disease that primarily infects children. But the tail-end efforts are at risk from the very thing that made eradication programs a success: the vaccines themselves. ……

Saving Lives at Birth: Round 6 Broad Agency Announcement “USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, DFID, and KOICA have joined together to launch Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development, to find the tools and approaches to help the mothers…

USAID’s “IMPACTblog”: USAID Delivers: Quality Care for Expectant Moms Results in Fewer Stillbirths Katie Taylor, deputy child and maternal survival coordinator at USAID and deputy assistant administrator for the Bureau for Global Health, discusses USAID’s commitment “to saving the lives of mothers and children,” including the agency’s involvement in The…

New York Times: In Pakistan, a Final Push to Wipe Out Polio Bina Shah, author “…[T]he Taliban’s efforts to fight the [polio eradication] campaign continue, as do management problems within the national immunization campaign. … One effort to resolve that problem was the introduction in Punjab last year of a smartphone…

African Independent Television: Bill Gates, Dangote Sign MoU With Nigerian Governors On Polio Eradication “Bill Gates, Alhaji Aliko Dangote in conjunction with northern states governors on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Routine Immunizations in Kaduna. The northern states that signed the agreement include, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna, Sokoto,…

Reuters: El Salvador urges against pregnancies until 2018 as Zika virus spreads “El Salvador on Thursday urged women in the Central American nation to avoid getting pregnant until 2018 to avoid their children developing birth defects from the mosquito-borne Zika virus which has rampaged through the Americas…” (Renteria/Stargardter, 1/21).

News outlets report on various aspects of UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children 2016, which calls for $2.8 billion in aid. Agence France-Presse: One in nine children globally live in conflict zones: UNICEF “Some 250 million children — one in nine children worldwide — live in countries affected by violent conflicts,…

News outlets highlight findings from the final report of the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO). Deutsche Welle: WHO report warns child obesity is ‘exploding nightmare’ “The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that, across the globe, at least 41 million children under the age of five are…

The Guardian: Breastfeeding could prevent 800,000 child deaths, Lancet says “If almost every mother breastfed her children it could prevent more than 800,000 child deaths a year, yet governments are failing to promote and support breastfeeding, with rates remaining far below international targets, new research has found. Poor government policies,…