AFRICA New Humanitarian: African countries struggle to find the coronavirus test kits they need (Zhu, 5/18). Reuters: Sudan extends lockdown in Khartoum state by two weeks: SUNA (Abdelaziz/Hassan, 5/18). Reuters: Zimbabweans go hungry as coronavirus compounds climate woes (Dzirutwe, 5/18). Reuters: Africa backs WHO, needs help with debt relief, supplies:…

Financial Times: Now is the time to tackle the mental illness epidemic Editorial Board “Business leaders have for decades boasted in company annual reports about how people are their priority. It is surprising, therefore, that mental health has taken so long to reach the top of their agenda. … Coronavirus…

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “The Optimist”: Humanizing quantitative data: A Q&A with Chloé Roubert and Micki Semler Chloé Roubert, design anthropology lead, and Micki Semler, design research lead, both at Sonder Design Collective (9/16). UNAIDS: Shaping the next UNAIDS global AIDS strategy (9/18). UNICEF: WHO and UNICEF recommit to…

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance: 10 reasons why pandemic fatigue could threaten global health in 2021 (9/23). IDSA’s “Science Speaks”: Science, not politics, must lead to COVID vaccine approvals Uché Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, and Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC (9/24). The Lancet: Lessons learnt from…

U.N. News Centre: New U.N. guide aims to address mental health needs in humanitarian emergencies “Two United Nations agencies [on Tuesday] issued a new guide to address the growing needs of millions of adults and children suffering from mental health problems in humanitarian emergencies around the world arising from natural…

U.N. News Centre: Everyone is entitled to a life of dignity, Ban says on World Mental Health Day “Everyone has the right to respect and dignity, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has declared in his message on World Mental Health Day, highlighting that people who have mental health and psychosocial…

BMJ Blogs: Alexandra Caulfield: Mental health in Africa — challenges and progress since 2008 Alexandra Caulfield, a researcher with Polygeia and a student on the Cambridge graduate course in medicine, discusses the emerging field of global mental health, “and its application to Africa in particular…” (10/22).

WHO: Global health workforce, finances remain low for mental health In this media note, the WHO discusses its recently released “Mental Health Atlas 2014.” The agency writes, “…Huge inequalities in access to mental health services exist depending on where people live. … The report states global spending on mental health…

WHO: Bulletin of the World Health Organization The August 2015 WHO Bulletin includes news, research, and policy articles on various topics, as well as an editorial on Bhutan’s use of gross national happiness as a measure of development (August 2015).

The Guardian: ‘Living in hell’: mentally ill people in Indonesia chained and confined “Almost 40 years after Indonesia banned the practice of shackling people with mental health conditions, nearly 19,000 are still living in chains, or are locked up in institutions where they are vulnerable to abuse, according to a…