Archive by category | World watch

Timeline of events: A brief history of what made news this year

Timeline of events: A brief history of what made news this year

This year has proven to be a veritable cliff-hanger for the world of biomedicine. At the same time that the US government stands poised on the brink of the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’, pharmaceutical companies are stumbling with the industry’s ‘patent cliff’ and academic researchers face the looming ‘funding cliff’. But not everything in 2012 was so dire, with dozens of new drugs to hit worldwide markets and countless discoveries made to enable the next generation of medicines. What follows are a set of ‘Cliff’s notes’ to the year that was for the field.  Read more

Pharma backs latest attempt at a global health R&D treaty

Pharma backs latest attempt at a global health R&D treaty

The World Health Organization (WHO) kicks off its annual meeting in Geneva next Monday, and one of the most contentious issues on the agenda will undoubtedly be a proposed agreement to fund the development of drugs for diseases that overwhelmingly afflict the world’s poor. The proposal, outlined today in PLoS Medicine, would require the WHO’s 193 member states to commit to increase government funding for global health initiatives from the $3 billion or so spent worldwide today to more than $6 billion annually in the near-future.  Read more

With even Europe falling behind, can WHO meet new goals for measles?

With even Europe falling behind, can WHO meet new goals for measles?

Perhaps it takes falling behind to know that you have to get ahead: shortly after The Lancet released a report today saying the World Health Organization had failed to meet its 2010 goal for global measles reduction, the WHO announced that it has a new, more ambitious target of eliminating measles and rubella—also known as German measles—in at least five of six global regions by 2020. The expanded goals come as Europe, despite its historically strong public health systems, is struggling to recover from more than 26,000 measles cases in 2011, a number on-par with developing countries such as Nigeria and Somalia.  Read more

MRSA’s killing potential explained, providing a new drug target to halt the superbug

MRSA’s killing potential explained, providing a new drug target to halt the superbug

Since it first arose more than 50 years ago, the methicillin-resistant staph infection known as MRSA has ravaged hospital wards around the globe, causing untreatable, often lethal, infections in people already weakened by disease. As with most cases of antibiotic resistance, the rise of the first MRSA bacteria was the fault of humans. The Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, which causes everything from respiratory infections to meningitis, mutated to become resistant to all the first-line drugs used to treat it—first penicillin, and later methicillin and other drugs known as beta-lactams.  Read more

Even if Somalia’s turmoil subsides, famine might increase long-term disease risk for survivors

Even if Somalia's turmoil subsides, famine might increase long-term disease risk for survivors

Drought and war have come together in Somalia, culminating in the worst famine to hit the region in decades. An estimated 800,000 children in the Horn of Africa are acutely malnourished, and over 80% of them are cut off from relief by warlords in the area. Today the UN World Food Programme intended to drop food supplies to the Somali capital to feed the 40,000 refugees gathered there, the first airlift in the two weeks since the UN declared the crisis an official famine.  Read more

Winning hearts and minds to beat polio

Winning hearts and minds to beat polio

Today, in the historic New York City residence of former US president and polio survivor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bill Gates took to the podium. As he spoke before a group of journalists, the Microsoft founder detailed the goal of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help stamp out polio. His words come on the heels of an announcement last Thursday when Gates, together with the Crown Prince of Abu-Dabhi of the United Arab Emirates, pledged to donate a total of $100 million toward many vaccines, including that against polio.  Read more

To combat Haitian cholera epidemic, researchers look to vaccines and early detection techniques

To combat Haitian cholera epidemic, researchers look to vaccines and early detection techniques

More than a year after a catastrophic earthquake struck Port-au-Prince and killed an estimated 230,000 Haitians, public health officials are still grappling with the fallout from a cholera outbreak that has so far killed more than 3,000 people and infected nearly 150,000 others. To strengthen the response on the ground, the World Bank yesterday awarded $15 million to aid efforts in identifying and responding to future cases of the disease.  Read more