Bloomberg: U.S. to Pledge Aid to Venezuelan Refugees Near Brazil Border
“U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will announce an increase in humanitarian aid to Venezuelan refugees during his upcoming visit to Brazil, according to two people with direct knowledge of the issue. The financial aid to be made via the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, will be announced by Pence in the Amazon port city of Manaus, according to the two people who asked not to be named because the U.S. is going to make the decision public…” (Adghirni/Iglesias/Talev, 6/25).

The Hill: Trump administration to announce additional aid for Venezuelan refugees: report
“…Pence announced in April that the U.S. would provide $16 million in humanitarian aid for Venezuelan refugees escaping the country’s brutal economic conditions…” (Samuels, 6/25).

Wall Street Journal: Mike Pence’s Visit to Latin America Will Include Talks on Migrant Crisis
“…A senior White House official said Mr. Pence’s trip is aimed at demonstrating to Latin Americans that various elections taking place across the continent this year offer those citizens a choice. … His final stop, in Guatemala, is aimed at demonstrating U.S. support for relief efforts following the deadly Volcán del Fuego volcano eruption…” (Salama, 6/26).

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Wall Street Journal: New CDC Director Targets Opioids, Suicide and Pandemics
“…[I]n his first interview in the role … [CDC Director] Robert Redfield [spoke] of the suicide rate, … [and] also touched on his goals for ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S., improving immunization rates, and strengthening public health systems in countries where epidemics are a risk. … Dr. Redfield said his top priority is to protect Americans from major global epidemic threats, namely pandemic flu and antimicrobial resistance. … He said he would work to ensure funding continues for priority epidemic programs…” (McKay, 6/25).

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New York Times: Head of U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees Warns of Cuts
“The United Nations agency that helps the 5.4 million Palestinians classified as refugees could start running out of money next month because of a $250 million shortfall, largely because of American aid cuts, its top official said Monday. … The most immediate threat, [Pierre Krähenbühl, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,] said, is funding for emergency food aid to indigent Palestinians in Gaza and Syria…” (Sugiyama/Gladstone, 6/25).

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Thomson Reuters Foundation: Malnutrition the ‘challenge of our time,’ say award winners
“Malnutrition is the ‘challenge of our time,’ with diet-related disease afflicting almost every country in the world, the winners of a $250,000 prize dubbed the Nobel for agriculture said on Monday. David Nabarro and Lawrence Haddad, who were jointly awarded this year’s World Food Prize, are jointly credited with cutting the number of stunted children in the world by 10 million by lobbying governments and donors to improve nutrition…” (Win, 6/25).

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The Guardian: Papua New Guinea suffers first polio outbreak in 18 years
“The first case of polio in Papua New Guinea in 18 years has been detected, with a six-year-old boy from the Morobe province the first confirmed case of the virus. The boy presented to health authorities on 28 April with weakness in his lower limbs and the virus — a vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 — was confirmed on 21 May. Last week, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the virus was also present in the stool samples of two children in the boy’s community, prompting health authorities to declare an official outbreak…” (Roy, 6/25).

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Devex: Long Story Short #19: Inside the Ebola response
“…In this episode, Devex Engagement Editor Kate Midden and West Africa Correspondent Christin Roby discuss the Ebola response [in the Democratic Republic of Congo], ongoing challenges, and how the current situation compares to past outbreaks…” (6/25).

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Associated Press: Walk or die: Algeria strands 13,000 migrants in the Sahara (Hinnant, 6/25).

Devex: Q&A: Bangladesh cholera expert on how to train personnel worldwide (Lieberman, 6/26).

Devex: Q&A: A criticism of the ‘innovation narrative’ (Jerving, 6/26).

Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazine: Empowering Women to Protect and Improve Their Own Health (Belz, Summer 2018).

IRIN: U.N. fears new Syrian offensive could strand up to 200,000 civilians (Parker, 6/25).

NPR: Logos On Aid Supplies: Helpful, Demeaning … Or Dangerous? (Gharib, 6/25).

Wall Street Journal: Global DNA Collection Kicks Off in Africa, Aiming to Decode Psychiatric Disease (Whalen, 6/25).

Washington Post: What if a pandemic hit the U.S. — are we ready? (Blakemore, 6/24).

Xinhua News: Africa to advance momentum in SDGs implementation, explore additional resources (6/25).

Xinhua News: Zambia says tobacco is greatest public health threat (6/26).

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Devex: Opinion: South Sudan’s children need community health workers to survive
Bester Mulauzi, director of program development and quality in South Sudan at Save the Children

“…South Sudan still has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. It hasn’t been for lack of trying or a lack of good intentions; but rather a failure to rapidly adapt solutions to our current reality. As donors and implementing agencies meet over the next few months to discuss the next phase of how to fund health in our country, we finally have the chance to get it right. … Donor countries, implementing NGOs, and the South Sudanese government need to shift more of their resources to low-cost community health delivery, focusing on treating the biggest killer diseases for children: malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea. … Only when the provision of health care is fully rolled out at community level in South Sudan will we see preventable child deaths averted, and only then will the world fulfill its promise to its newest fragile country” (6/22).

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Scientific American: No More Chicken Soup: Data Is the Answer to Fighting the Flu
Eva Lee, the Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and professor of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, director of the Center for Operations Research in Medicine and Healthcare at Georgia Institute of Technology, and fellow of the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

“…Operations research and analytics can play an important role in assisting experimental scientists in their study of viruses or design of vaccines. … Such computational approaches can also assist in understanding the mutation of the viruses, evolutionary trends, genetic distances and diversity, and geographical distribution. … By utilizing analytics, the results can generate biological hypotheses and may influence the direction of experiments. … [B]e assured that there is a broad and concerted ongoing effort to develop the means to most efficiently target the right and most vulnerable people in society for the right vaccines, while pursuing our larger goal of a universal flu vaccine” (6/25).

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International Atomic Energy Agency: IAEA Organizes Second Coordination Meeting to Combat Malnutrition in Africa
Valentina Varbanova of the IAEA Department of Technical Cooperation, Victor Ochieng Owino of the IAEA Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, and Tyler Flenard of the IAEA Department of Technical Cooperation discuss a May 28-June 1 meeting of “a regional IAEA technical cooperation project that focuses on the use of nuclear techniques to assess the body composition of children previously affected by malnutrition…” (6/25).

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PLOS Blogs’ “Global Health”: Cracking the Codex: the new frontier for nutrition labelling
Alexandra Jones, global health lawyer and PhD candidate at the George Institute for Global Health and the University of Sydney; Anne Marie Thow, senior lecturer in health policy at the University of Sydney; and Carmen Huckel Schneider, senior lecturer in health policy at the University of Sydney, and co-lead of the Health Governance and Financing Group and the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, discuss the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a “U.N. body created by the WHO and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, [with] a dual mandate: to protect consumer health and promote fair trade practices.” The authors provide a link to a briefing note they wrote, titled, “Public health nutrition and front of pack nutrition labelling at Codex” (6/25).

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Food Tank: Improving Supply Chains Can Help Ensure Nutritious Food Reaches the Poor and Malnourished
Freelance journalist Lisa Elaine Held discusses several programs supported by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), including Food Value Chains that aim to supply more nutritious food to vulnerable populations (6/24).

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Open Access Government: Diabetes: A Global Health Challenge
“Professor Nam H. Cho, president of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), shares his expert views on the rise of diabetes across the globe…” (6/25).

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USAID’s “ImpactBlog”: Communities on the Road to Recovery and Healing In Post-Ebola Sierra Leone
Abdul Samba Brima, a communications coordinator at John Snow, Inc./Advancing Partners & Communities Project, discusses how people in Sierra Leone, affected by both war and the 2014 Ebola epidemic, “are finding a way to heal and to address community issues, which is leading to resiliency, and, ultimately, stronger community-based systems that meet people’s needs.” Brima, who is from Sierra Leone, writes, “I could only admire the spirit and perseverance of this community … as it finds answers to the numerous mental health challenges and broader community issues. … With USAID support, communities are being transformed and poised for a better future” (6/25).

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