Agence France-Presse: Polio case detected in Mali, country on ‘high alert’: WHO
“Mali is on high alert after a baby was found to have the highly contagious, crippling polio virus, the World Health Organization said Monday, blaming low vaccination coverage…” (9/7).

New York Times: West African Child Is Paralyzed by Vaccine-Derived Polio
“…It is the first time the disease has been seen in Mali since 2011. The patient is a Guinean child whose parents traveled to Bamako seeking medical care. The child’s virus is a close genetic match to a strain last detected in a nearby region of Guinea in 2014…” (McNeil, 9/7).

Popular Science: New Polio Case Confirmed In Mali
“…This particular strain of polio is vaccine-derived, which sometimes happens with oral vaccination. This type of vaccine uses weakened polio virus, which may sometimes mutate and make its way back into a community. Areas that are under-vaccinated are especially vulnerable. Still, circulating vaccine-derived polio is rare…” (Borel, 9/7).

Reuters: Polio resurfaces in Mali from Ebola-hit Guinea: WHO
“…WHO figures show Guinea’s polio vaccination coverage fell from 63 percent to 42 percent in 2014, as the Ebola outbreak caused chaos and overwhelmed an already weak national health system. In Mali, by contrast, polio vaccination coverage rose to 84 percent in 2014, from 72-77 percent in preceding years…” (Miles, 9/7).

Link to individual story

Agence France-Presse: New Ebola case in Sierra Leone quarantine village: president
“Another woman has tested positive for Ebola in a village in northern Sierra Leone already under quarantine after the death of a 67-year-old woman a week ago, President Ernest Bai Koroma said. Koroma said the new case, confirmed on Saturday, had been in contact with the woman who died on August 28 in the village of Sellu Kafta in Kambia district…” (9/6).

Agence France-Presse: Village of 1,000 quarantined after Ebola death in SLeone
“… ‘Over 970 people are being monitored under quarantine as there is information that they had had some contact with the deceased woman who tested positive after her death,’ the district Ebola response office said in a report distributed to reporters…” (9/4).

Link to individual story

Washington Times: Ebola vaccine studies progress as marketing quells suspicions of modern medicine
“Ebola had just killed thousands of people in Liberia, and the U.S.-backed pitch to sign locals up for a vaccine trial must have seemed like a tough sell: Take part of the very virus that had devastated the region, combine it with a separate, harmless virus, and inject it into volunteers with the hope they develop Ebola antibodies. But some creative marketing, brutal honesty, and good will built up from months of lifesaving humanitarian efforts paid off, with more than 1,500 volunteers now taking part in a vaccine study run out of Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, the capital…” (Howell, 9/7).

Link to individual story

Agence France-Presse: Cash-strapped U.N. stops aid to Syria refugees in Jordan
“The U.N. food agency said on Friday it has ceased assistance to 229,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan because of a lack of funds, but will continue to provide for 211,000 others…” (9/4).

Associated Press/Al Jazeera America: U.N. agency forced to cut food aid to 229,000 Syrian refugees
“The cash-strapped World Food Programme (WFP) has had to drop one-third of Syrian refugees from its food voucher program in Middle Eastern host countries this year, including 229,000 in Jordan who stopped receiving food aid in September, a spokeswoman said Friday. The sharp cutbacks come at a time when growing numbers of desperate Syrians who initially found refuge in neighboring countries are trying to reach Europe…” (9/4).

Link to individual story

U.N. News Centre: U.N. agency chief and U2’s Bono urge action to address hunger needs of people fleeing conflict
“As the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) continues to face challenges in funding its emergency response in Syria, the agency’s Executive Director Ertharin Cousin has thanked U2 lead singer and ONE co-founder Bono, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and Ireland’s Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney for their efforts to give voice and support to the world’s hungry poor…” (9/7).

Link to individual story

The Guardian: U.N. agencies ‘broke and failing’ in face of ever-growing refugee crisis
“The U.N.’s humanitarian agencies are on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to meet the basic needs of millions of people because of the size of the refugee crisis in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, senior figures within the U.N. have told the Guardian…” (Grant, 9/6).

Link to individual story

Devex: Food aid: 3 funding trends you should know
“…Although the lack of common understanding within the international community about what fits in the food aid toolbox makes long-term trends in food assistance difficult to assess, Devex decided to take a closer look at U.N. data sources — including the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ financial tracking service and the World Food Programme’s food aid information system — to untangle a few recent funding trends…” (De Vos, 9/4).

Link to individual story

VOA News: Yemen Close to ‘Disaster’ as Medical Shortages Continue
“Aid agencies are warning of a possible humanitarian disaster in Yemen, including severe malnutrition. The agencies say up to 500,000 children lack food or nutrients in their diet. Yemeni hospitals are running low on simple medicines, they say…” (9/8).

Link to individual story

Thomson Reuters Foundation: How to keep a girl from skipping school, marrying? Give her a toilet
“…Only about three in five Zambians have access to toilets including pit latrines or public toilets, according to the United Nations. Only 45 percent of schools have toilets. … For schoolgirls, a lack of toilets often means missing lessons or pulling out of school altogether. Menstruating girls around the world miss up to 20 percent of their classes if their schools have no toilets, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF says…” (Mis, 9/8).

Link to individual story

Associated Press: Doctors Without Borders: snakebite treatment running out
“Doctors Without Borders says the world will run out of one of the most effective treatments for snakebites next year, putting the lives of tens of thousands of people at risk, mostly in developing countries…” (Cheng, 9/7).

Deutsche Welle: Report: snakebite treatment in short supply
“…Existing stockpiles of the anti-venom Fav-Afrique produced by Sanofi Pasteur will expire in June. The company stopped producing the anti-venom last year and has since switched to making a rabies treatment at its facilities…” (9/7).

Link to individual story

Devex: Development impact bonds could be part of the solution to financing child survival
Andrew Wainer, director of policy research for Save the Children

“…This summer, the U.S. Senate took an initial step toward tapping into new development funding through the introduction of the Reach Every Mother and Child Act of 2015. The bill — introduced by Sens. Susan Collins, Republican from Maine, and Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware — requires the administration to develop an innovative financing framework that leverages financing from the private sector, among other sources. … In addition to the framework mandated by the Collins-Coons bill, the U.S. Agency for International Development recently launched a child and maternal health financing framework in which [development impact bonds (DIBs)] play a significant role. The Reach Every Mother and Child Act legislation would codify this framework. … USAID’s new framework and the introduction of the Collins-Coons bill are hopeful signs that the U.S. government is embracing new approaches and tools required by the changing development finance landscape and the world’s ambitious 2030 Sustainable Development Goals” (9/4).

Link to individual story

New York Times: Extreme Weather and Food Shocks
Tim Benton, academic director of the Global Security Program and professor of population ecology at the University of Leeds, and Rob Bailey, research director for energy, environment, and resources at Chatham House

“…The greatest challenge [in ensuring food security] will be to make the global food system far more resilient. … Recent multilateral efforts to improve the quality and availability of key market data, such as food stock levels, can help governments anticipate crises and avoid panic. But improved climate and economic modeling is needed to understand the risks and assess how best to manage them. Armed with this knowledge, governments, international organizations, and businesses could engage in contingency planning, set up early-warning systems, and coordinate the management of strategic stocks. … Taking smart and practical steps to ease the impact of our changing climate on our food supplies is vital if we are to ride out the droughts and storms that will impact our food prices” (9/8).

Link to individual story

The Guardian: Sustainable development will hinge on the smooth union of private and public
Alex Evans, senior fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and co-editor of Global Dashboard

“…Looking ahead, it is the private sector that will need to provide the bulk of the trillion dollars a year needed to plug the global infrastructure gap. The private sector will also be the frontline of the global battle for sustainability, whether reducing greenhouse gas emissions or building a circular economy with zero waste. For all these reasons, a partnership approach is essential … In the end … partnerships need to involve a sophisticated, holistic approach that recognizes different actors can contribute in different ways, and that intelligent design of markets and incentives is the best means of going about this” (9/7).

Link to individual story

Global Health Technologies Coalition’s “Breakthroughs”: Research Roundup: injectable HIV treatment, the role of health technologies in reaching SDGs, PrEP showing promise, and more
GHTC Communications Officer Marissa Chmiola highlights recent news in global health research, including the development of an injectable HIV treatment, the role of health technologies in global health research and development, the effectiveness of PrEP to prevent HIV infection, and challenges to controlling the spread of dengue (9/7).

Link to individual story