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A fever, sore throat, muscle aches, and rashes or mucosal lesions on the skin. Recovery is usually spontaneous, unless an infected person has a weakened immune system, say, from untreated HIV. In severe cases, the disease can be fatal.   These symptoms and prognoses are characteristic of mpox, an outbreak of which is ravaging the…

In August 2024, of 5 reported cases of an infection in the South Indian state of Kerala, 3 resulted in fatalities. This infection, identified as amoebic meningoencephalitis or brain-eating amoeba infection, was linked to a pond filled with mossy green stagnant water,   The progression of amoebic meningoencephalitis is so swift that clinicians rarely ever…

“During Covid, we needed to manufacture new vaccines, based on a new immunisation approach, at very large scales and an unprecedented rate. Modular systems were a lifesaver. Pfizer installed some 13,000 square feet of modular rooms to rapidly scale up their capacity. With this upgrade, the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership went from producing 3-4 million vaccine doses…

“Health officials in the Florida Keys issue a dengue fever alert”   “Dengue cases in Bengaluru cross 2,000; over 9K residents tested since January 1”   “A record surge in dengue cases in Latin America spurs a warning”   “Burkina Faso: more than 350 deaths from dengue fever in a month”   “Dengue will ‘take…

The diabetes burden in LMICs. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), there were 164,400 adult cases of diabetes in Burkina Faso in 2021.   Nigeria, with a larger overall population, had 3,623,500 adults with diabetes in 2021.   In Kenya, the number stood at 821,500.   In Côte d’Ivoire, it was 231,200.   The…

June 2024 was the warmest June on record. May 2024 was the warmest May on record. The same goes for April, March, February… back to June 2023.   June 2024 was also the 12th consecutive month in which global temperatures reached 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average recorded between 1850 and 1900. Steady, undeniable progress towards…

As a medical oncologist and Executive Director of the Uganda Cancer Institute, Dr Jackson Orem has decades of experience in oncology research. In an article in Nature’s Communications Medicine, he shed light on the complexity and dynamism of cancer care, a practice based deeply on evolving research and advancing technologies.   Drawing from his extensive…

In an article in Communications Medicine, a professor of epidemiology points out that cancer used to be a disease of the affluent, reserved predominantly for people in high-income countries. In the past few decades, however, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have become home to a high burden of cancer-related morbidity and mortality.   In the…

The World Health Organisation (WHO) claims that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the leading public health and development threats in the world. The global health agency estimates that in 2019, 1.27 million deaths were a direct consequence of AMR. In total, AMR contributed to an astounding 4.95 million deaths that year.   With many…