Category Archives: Global health

Big pharma accused of ‘free-riding on nature’ as global fund attracts just $7,000

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The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty

Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.

The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.

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Nigeria confirms Ebola case as outbreak spreads into western Africa

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Case in Africa’s most populous country was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda

Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.

The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

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Ebola outbreak in DRC has peaked, say authorities, as infection rates slow

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Almost 3,500 people have died in outbreak and experts say more must be done to ensure Bundibugyo is under control

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have announced that the Ebola outbreak ravaging parts of the country has reached its peak.

For the first time since the epidemic was declared in May, the numbers of people becoming infected is slowing down, according to officials.

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$15m fund launched to create ‘unstoppable momentum’ to end FGM worldwide

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Her Horizon Fund seeks $100m to stop practice harming 230m women and girls globally

Frontline activists and leaders in the fight against female genital mutilation, which has affected more than 230 million women and girls worldwide, have welcomed an unprecedented $15.5m (£11.4m) fund aimed at creating “unstoppable momentum” to finally end the practice.

The launch of the fund comes as women’s rights are increasingly under attack and donor funding is in sharp decline, particularly for work led by FGM survivors in local communities. It is thought to be the largest single philanthropic contribution to ending the practice of FGM.

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Tens of millions of people fail to get humanitarian aid as global system crumbles

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Funding cuts in 2025 left women, children, older and displaced people hard hit, with 64m fewer people receiving aid

The humanitarian aid system is crumbling as funding shrinks, pressures increase and governments not only fail to protect civilians but are increasingly responsible for endangering them, a new report warned on Thursday as figures revealed 64 million fewer people received aid last year.

With aid contributions cut by 30% between 2022 and 2025 and thousands of aid workers losing their jobs, the humanitarian system has suffered one of its biggest contractions since being formed in the post-second world war era, according to the State of the Humanitarian System 2026 report.

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Babies born to anaemic mothers have smaller brains, study finds

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Key regions of the brain linked to movement, learning and emotions were affected and may lead to cognitive problems

Babies born to mothers with anaemia have smaller brains, particularly in key regions linked to movement, learning and the regulation of emotion, according to a study.

Researchers said the differences, first detected at the age of one, could lead to cognitive problems when children started school.

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Mpox is back – and in new countries. How can this outbreak be contained?

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The public health emergencies in 2022 and 2024 saw the virus reported in 145 countries, but in the new cases children appear particularly affected

A fresh outbreak of mpox in Guinea Bissau – the country’s first – means the virus formerly known as monkey pox is back in the headlines. So what has changed?

Since 2022, there have been almost 190,000 lab-confirmed cases of mpox reported worldwide in 145 countries. Before then, outbreaks of mpox tended to be relatively small and in a handful of African countries, where the viral infection was known to be endemic.

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Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo now deadliest in country’s history

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At least 2,325 people have been killed, according to government data, surpassing the death toll from 2018-20 outbreak

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the deadliest in the country’s history with at least 2,325 people killed, according to government data, surpassing the toll from the 2018-20 outbreak.

Congo’s public health institute said on Sunday that confirmed cases had risen to 4,945, including 101 new cases detected in the previous 24 hours.

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DRC’s fast-growing Ebola outbreak spreads to sixth province

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Man dies in Bas-Uele after travelling from Haut-Uele, as head of WHO says outbreak on track to be deadliest ever

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a sixth province, officials have said, a day after the head of the World Health Organization said the outbreak was on track to surpass the deadliest in history, which killed at least 11,000 people more than a decade ago.

The current outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures released on Tuesday. At the same point in the 2014-16 outbreak in west Africa, the previous most deadly outbreak, 755 cases had been recorded, according to WHO data.

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Trump’s HIV funding cuts having ‘severe and devastating’ impact around the world

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The President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief has saved 26m lives globally, but slashing of funds and dismantling of USAID have forced clinics to shut in dozens of countries

No part of the United States’ anti-HIV programme has escaped unscathed from Donald Trump’s funding cuts, despite pledges from the administration to protect care that saved lives around the world, a new report has found.

Funding cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) have caused “severe and devastating” disruption globally, with thousands of staff laid off and many clinics closed, according to research being presented next week at the 26th International Aids Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It warns that changes in US policy risk reversing progress in the fight against HIV/Aids.

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Catnip lotion as effective as Deet at repelling mosquitoes, study finds

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Researchers testing a cheap, homegrown oil in Uganda found what cats knew all along – it worked as well as the artificial chemical used globally

A homegrown catnip lotion has proven “just as effective as Deet” as a mosquito repellant in trials carried out in Uganda.

Catnip, or Nepeta cataria, is a common herb from the mint family. The chemical in the plant that causes feline euphoria – nepetalactone – also has insect-repelling properties but this has not previously been commercialised.

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What will define Elon Musk’s legacy? Doge cuts to USAID Ebola programs

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Experts say cuts have hindered the response to DRC’s Ebola outbreak and resulted in ‘significant numbers’ of deaths

Elon Musk has an Ebola problem. SpaceX stock dropped precipitously after its initial public offering, and Tesla faces a wave of lawsuits. But instead of focusing on his companies, Musk has posted frequently on X about the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which he helped dismantle – or, in his words, feed into the woodchipper – last year.

“Elon’s USAID crash-out over the past week has been a thing to behold,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former top USAID official who oversaw the agency’s Ebola response in 2014-2015 and the president of Refugees International. “In a way, it’s helpful that Elon is doing this, because it’s putting attention back on the issue of what he did last year.”

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Whereabouts of nearly 300 people with Ebola unknown in DR Congo

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Fears over ‘huge community transmission’ as modelling predicts thousands of deaths in DRC by September

The whereabouts of almost 300 people who have tested positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is unknown, according to Africa’s top public health official.

The humanitarian crisis amid the conflict in the affected areas means more than 1 million people are living in camps to which health workers have no access, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Thursday.

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Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached ‘alarming’ levels since aid cuts, survey finds

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Fears hard-won gains in reducing child mortality over 20 years are at risk after end of USAID funding for nutrition programmes

Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached “alarming” levels, according to the largest ever survey of under-fives in the country.

The new figures came just over a year after USAID, the former US flagship agency closed by the Trump administration in 2025, stopped funding work on child nutrition in Nepal.

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Sierra Leone’s first lady refuses to condemn FGM without ‘reliable data’ on harms

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Exclusive: health professionals, survivors and politicians voice concerns in open letter over comments by Fatima Maada Bio, who denies supporting the practice

The first lady of Sierra Leone has denied that she supports female genital mutilation amid rising anger around her perceived approval of the practice.

But in an exclusive response to the Guardian, Fatima Maada Bio, the wife of President Julius Maada Bio, also said she would not openly condemn FGM until she saw “reliable data” that the practice was harmful.

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Experts criticise plan for American-only Ebola quarantine centre in Kenya

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Plan departs from policy of bringing CDC staff back to US for treatment and offering support to all health workers

Former top US officials and other experts are urging the Trump administration to abandon plans for an Ebola quarantine and treatment centre in Kenya, as the union for workers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls for Americans exposed to Ebola to be brought home for treatment.

Soon after the US revealed it was setting up a field hospital in Kenya for the Ebola quarantine and treatment of Americans, the Kenyan high court blocked the order – but the Kenyan and US governments moved forward anyway, with the first American responders reportedly landing at the Laikipia airbase on Saturday.

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Suspected Ebola cases in DRC pass 900 as health workers face attacks and shortages

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World Health Organization says outbreak poses ‘very high’ risk for Congo, but risk of disease spreading globally remains low

Congolese authorities say that suspected Ebola cases have now passed 900 in the ongoing outbreak in the east of the country.

The Congolese ministry of communication, in a post on X on Sunday, said there were 904 suspected cases and 119 suspected deaths.

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Suspected Ebola cases triple in a week as WHO warns of rapid spread in DRC

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Situation described as ‘deeply worrisome’ by officials as aid cuts and community distrust impede responders

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo poses a “very high” risk to the country, the World Health Organization said on Friday, revising its threat assessment upwards.

The outbreak is spreading rapidly, WHO leaders said, with almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, up from 246 cases and 65 deaths when it was first reported a week earlier.

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Infectious diseases such as hantavirus and Ebola becoming more frequent and damaging, say experts

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Pandemic report warns of growing global threat as health teams in Africa move to contain Ebola outbreak

The world is becoming less resilient to outbreaks of infectious diseases, experts have warned, as health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda scramble to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) said in a report published on Monday that “as infectious disease outbreaks become more frequent they are also becoming more damaging”, warning that pandemic risk is outpacing investments in preparedness and “the world is not yet meaningfully safer”.

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Ebola outbreak kills 65 people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Uganda also reports outbreak and health officials say cases were caused by Bundibugyo strain of virus

An outbreak of Ebola has killed 65 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, health officials said.

There have been 246 suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever reported so far in the conflict-hit Ituri province, which shares borders with Uganda and South Sudan.

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