News Deeply: Using Existing Health and Food Systems to Combat Rising Obesity Rates Justine Kavle, nutrition team lead for USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program “…The global conversation addressing overweight and obesity has recently centered on country-level enforcement of sugar taxes. … [W]hat can be done in addition to taxes…

EURACTIV: Whose aid is it anyway? (Fox, 4/18). Financial Times: How close are we to defeating malaria? (Symon/Jack, 4/18). Global Health NOW: Opiophobia and High Costs: Untangling the Barriers to Palliative Care (Sutherland, 4/17). The Guardian: From cattle herder to big pharma expert: one man’s fight to end malaria –…

Reuters: Novo Nordisk, Red Cross team up to tackle chronic diseases in conflict zones “Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk and aid agency Red Cross have teamed up to try to improve the treatment of chronic diseases among the millions affected by conflicts and humanitarian crises in countries such as Syria and…

Wall Street Journal: After the Gas and Bombs: The Health Crisis That’s Killing Syria “This country’s seven-year war is fueling a parallel disaster: a crippling public-health catastrophe. Some 400,000 Syrians have died from bullets, bombs, or torture, including alleged recent gas attacks. More may have died as a result of…

Baltimore Sun: University of Maryland virus institute to lead $100 million effort to track HIV programs in Nigeria (McDaniels, 4/17). Deutsche Welle: Philippines: Reported HIV subtype is treatable, says UNAIDS official (Santos, 4/17). Devex: Short-term private investment impacts sustainable development, U.N. report finds (Lieberman, 4/17). Global Health NOW: Palliative Pain…

WHO: WHO urges action on Europe’s biggest killers to reduce early deaths by a third “How can health systems in the WHO European Region save more people from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, and help meet the global goal to reduce premature deaths from NCDs…

FT Health: Why ‘sin taxes’ are good economics The latest issue of the Financial Times’ weekly global health newsletter discusses the debate over taxing unhealthy products to improve the health of populations. The newsletter also features an interview with Jim O’Neill, former chair of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, about his…

Devpolicy Blog: Latest findings on non-communicable diseases: what is happening in Asia and the Pacific? Ian Anderson, associate at the Development Policy Centre and PhD student at Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, discusses recent WHO findings on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), looking specifically at progress in Asia and Pacific region…

Devex: U.N. launches new fund on road safety, as deaths continue to climb “A new United Nations trust fund on road safety launched Thursday, in a bid to address the growing number of road traffic injuries and deaths in developing countries. … The road safety fund — which received a…

Devex: In India, struggles to address mental health (Cousins, 4/12). Devex: New $250M Audacious Project from TED announces first recipients (Cheney, 4/11). Global Health NOW: The Last Temptation of a Child: Drowning Prevention in Rural Bangladesh (Agrawal, 4/11). The Guardian: Want to save the world from hunger? Start by not…