CIDRAP News: WHO reveals delayed pick for H3N2 flu vaccine strain (Schnirring, 3/21). Devex: Q&A: Why the world needs science and partnerships to tackle TB (3/22). EURACTIV.com: Public health activists say eradicating tobacco must be a human right (Michalopoulos, 3/22). The Guardian: U.N. to explore wave of deaths linked to…

FT Health: war on flu and pneumonia; sleep hype; space medicine The latest issue of the Financial Times’ weekly global health newsletter discusses the WHO’s recently launched global influenza strategy for 2019-2030 and features an interview with Kevin Watkins, chief executive officer of Save the Children U.K., who discusses the…

CIDRAP News: WHO: Ebola spread in DRC still ‘moderate’ (Soucheray, 3/12). Devex: What next in the fight against Lassa fever? (Adepoju, 3/13). NPR: Measles Is Spiking Around The Globe. How Worried Should We Be? (Wamsley, 3/12). SciDev.Net: Vaccine cuts new pneumonia cases in kids by a quarter (Achieng’, 3/12). The…

Deutsche Welle: Next flu pandemic ‘a matter of when, not if,’ says WHO “The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday outlined a global plan for fighting influenza and trying to prevent or slow any worldwide outbreak of the viral disease, warning that the danger of a pandemic was ‘ever-present’…” (Jones,…

The Telegraph: Pneumonia: how the world’s biggest killer of children became a neglected disease “…According to Dr. Stefan Peterson, the leading expert on pneumonia for UNICEF, … lack of investment and the absence of any global initiatives, such as those seen for malaria or HIV, mean thousands of pneumonia cases…

NPR: The Unintended Benefits Of Vaccines “A new study shows that vaccination with a weakened strain of salmonella not only protects against typhoid fever but also seems to rev up the immune system to fight off other problems, like influenza and yeast infection. … For decades, scientists have observed an…

New York Times: Studies of Deadly Flu Virus, Once Banned, Are Set to Resume “Research that could make flu viruses more dangerous, and that the government suspended in 2014 because of safety concerns, has been approved to begin again, federal officials have confirmed. The government did not publicly announce its…

Reuters: Starving girl shows impact of Yemen war, economic collapse “Displaced by war, starving, and living under a tree, 12-year-old Fatima Qoba weighed just 10kg when she was carried into a Yemeni malnutrition clinic. … Qoba’s slide into starvation is typical of what is happening in much of Yemen, where…

STAT: What happened to bird flu? How a major threat to human health faded from view “Just over a dozen years ago, a bird flu virus known as H5N1 was charting a destructive course through Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, ravaging poultry in apocalyptic numbers and killing six…

CNN: Why these Pacific Island nations have world’s highest childhood obesity rates (Howard, 2/13). IRIN: Drought and rising costs to leave 2.4 million Zimbabweans needing food aid (Phiri, 2/12). U.N. News: ‘Shared responsibility’ to stop 420,000 needless deaths from tainted food each year, U.N., world leaders warn (2/12). U.N. News:…