Humanosphere: Funding fails to keep pace with record number of people in need of aid
“Humanitarian needs are growing worldwide and international donors are not keeping up. The United Nations says it needs $23.5 billion to help some 141 million people across 37 countries in need of humanitarian assistance. It is $1.3 billion more than what the organization pleaded for only six months ago…” (Murphy, 6/21).

U.N. News Centre: As crises multiply, U.N. revises annual aid appeal to assist over 100 million around the world
“…According to a news release issued by the U.N. Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), new natural and man-made disasters as well as deteriorating protracted emergencies have resulted in an additional eight million people around the world needing assistance. Since its launch on 5 December 2017, donors have provided about $6.2 billion for the 2017 global appeal. However, with more than half of the year still remaining and needs rising, more is needed…” (6/21).

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Associated Press: E.U. court: Vaccines can be blamed for illnesses without proof
“The highest court of the European Union ruled Wednesday that courts can consider whether a vaccination led to someone developing an illness even when there is no scientific proof. … On Wednesday, the E.U.’s top court said that despite the lack of scientific consensus on the issue, a vaccine could be considered defective if there was ‘specific and consistent evidence,’ including the time between a vaccine’s administration and the onset of a disease, an individual’s previous state of health, the lack of any family history of the disease, and a significant number of reported cases of the disease occurring following vaccination…” (Cheng, 6/22).

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Globe and Mail: In Venezuela, a once-leading AIDS program lies in ruins
“…Back when I was covering the African epidemic [more than a decade ago], Venezuela was invoked with admiration: This country has had free, public treatment for HIV since 1999. Its AIDS program was a model for countries throughout the developing world. … But Venezuela is now years into a political and economic crisis that began under that same socialist government, implemented by Hugo Chavez. Nationalizations, price and currency controls mean there are chronic shortages, and the once-leading AIDS program is in ruins…” (Nolen, 6/21).

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Reuters: More than 5 million children need urgent humanitarian aid in Iraq: UNICEF
“More than five million children are in urgent need of aid in Iraq, the United Nations said on Thursday, describing the war on Islamic State as ‘one of the most brutal’ in modern history. ‘Across Iraq, children continue to witness sheer horror and unimaginable violence,’ the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement…” (Rasheed, 6/21).

VOA News: In Iraq, Children Dying, Suffering in ‘One of the Most Brutal Wars’
“…More than 1,000 children have been killed in Iraq since 2014, when IS militants swept into the country, claiming territories, including Mosul and other major cities, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF. … More than 1,100 children have been injured in the IS conflict in Iraq, according to UNICEF, and that’s just the children they know of. The fighting in Iraq has displaced more than 1.5 million children in the past three years, UNICEF said…” (Murdock, 6/21).

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Associated Press: War-torn Yemen to get cholera vaccines as death toll mounts
“The U.N. health agency and some major partners have agreed to send one million doses of cholera vaccine to Yemen to help stanch a spiraling and increasingly deadly caseload in the impoverished country, which is already facing war and the risk of famine…” (Keaten, 6/22).

The Lancet Infectious Diseases: Cholera in Yemen
“…After years of war, Yemen’s health care system is in a fragile state. … With an ongoing famine, about 462,000 children have severe acute malnutrition. There has been no government health budget since March 26, 2015. In October, 2016, the first wave of cholera broke out…” (Balakrishnan, July 2017).

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International Business Times: Scientists locate where the most deadly ‘missing viruses’ are hiding
“…Many of the most deadly human diseases jump to people from other species. HIV and Ebola originated in other primates and SARS is thought to have come from bats. Now scientists think they know which viruses are most likely to leap from an animal host to humans, which animals pose the most danger of passing on such a virus, and where a transmission event is most likely to happen. The study is published in the journal Nature…” (Henriques, 6/21).

NPR: Spillover Beasts: Which Animals Pose The Biggest Viral Risk?
“…The study, published Wednesday, also estimates how many ‘missing’ viruses are out there in the world — viruses that we know are in animals and can possibly jump into people, only we haven’t detected them yet. To do that, [the research] team scoured studies and databases to create a list of all known viruses in mammals on Earth. They ended up with nearly 600 unique viruses found in about 750 species. About a third of the viruses had the ability to jump from mammals into people…” (Doucleff, 6/21).

Wall Street Journal: Predicting the Next Pandemic
“…Using a database of 2,805 mammal-virus connections, the researchers found that bats harbor nearly twice as many viruses that either threaten humans today or could threaten them in the future than the next mammal on the list — primates. Rodents came in third. Bats can infect people directly and by infecting other animals such as primates…” (McKay, 6/21).

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Miami Herald: The U.N. owes Haiti relief from cholera epidemic it introduced
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, and Betty Williams, all Nobel Peace Prize recipients

“Seven years after its soldiers sparked the world’s worst cholera epidemic in Haiti, the United Nations is finally preparing to close its MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission there. As Nobel Peace laureates committed to the U.N.’s ideal of universal human rights, we are deeply concerned that the victims of MINUSTAH’s catastrophic actions remain without justice and reparations, despite U.N. promises to repair the harm it has caused. As the Security Council visits Haiti this week to wind up the mission, it must ensure that the U.N. settles its debt to the Haitian people before MINUSTAH leaves — for their sake, but also for the sake of the United Nations itself, whose legacy in Haiti risks being defined by scandal, and whose credibility and very ideals are on the line. … Only by fulfilling the organization’s true duties and resolving this disaster in Haiti will it be possible to recover the principles and values that give the U.N. reason to exist” (6/21).

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New York Times: What Killed Half a Million Indians?
Pranay Sinha, a physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Scott K. Heysell, a physician and associate professor of medicine, infectious diseases, and international health at the University of Virginia

“…A staggering number of Indians — over 400 million — are estimated to be infected with TB. … Yet the Indian government has failed to grapple with the urgency and magnitude of the crisis. … India’s underfunded health care system struggles to provide preventive care to Indians who need it most. … To eradicate TB, finding active cases is necessary along with rapid initiation of TB treatment and ensuring the completion of therapy. Additionally, contacts of TB patients must be located, tested, and treated if necessary. Enlarging India’s corps of community health workers will be important for these activities. The private sector must be trained, motivated, and assisted to provide the standard of care or to refer TB patients to [public health] services. … Millions of Indians have died of TB, and millions more have seen the disease stifle their hopes of a better tomorrow. It is time for the Indian government to cough up the money needed to end the suffering” (6/21).

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Center for Strategic & International Studies: A Moment of Reckoning for U.S. Leadership on Global HIV
In an email alert, Sara Allinder, deputy director and senior fellow with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, writes, “In February 2017, the CSIS Global Health Policy Center convened an expert working group on HIV to discuss critical issues affecting continued U.S. leadership and progress toward control of the pandemic. [On Wednesday] we published a policy brief ‘A Moment of Reckoning for U.S. Leadership on Global HIV’ on behalf of the group with recommendations to the Trump administration and Congress. Over the next month, we will publish an expanded version as well as companion papers focused on the Global Fund, the needs of adolescent girls and young women, and sustainability and country ownership…” (6/21).

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Friends of the Global Fight Blog: Why every cent matters in the U.S. global health budget
Friends of the Global Fight President Chris Collins writes, “I recently had the honor of addressing the amfAR Capitol Hill Conference, ‘Making AIDS History: A Roadmap for Ending the Epidemic,’ and I talked about why every dollar counts in U.S. global health investments. … In my presentation I argued that even smaller cuts to U.S. bilateral programs for HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria, as well as our investment in the Global Fund, risk taking us off track to ending these deadly epidemics. … We must continue steady funding for global health to save lives, bolster economies, and protect the world, as well as our own shores, against the resurgence of disease. This is why every dollar — every cent — matters in global health” (6/21).

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Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks”: WHO sets stage for global ministerial TB conference, seeks input on declaration
Antigone Barton, senior editor and writer of “Science Speaks,” discusses the goals of the Global Ministerial Conference on Ending TB, set to take place this November in Moscow, and notes an online consultation period for the conference’s zero draft declaration is open until June 30 (6/21).

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