Nurith Aizenman

The successful anti-AIDS program PEPFAR is under threat in Congress

A Martínez

The AIDS relief plan PEPFAR is in the crosshairs of abortion politics in Congress. It has widely enjoyed bipartisan support, until now, and a key re-authorization may lapse.

How scientists are using fish music to protect coral reefs

Nurith Aizenman

Questioning if fish bay at the moon could lead to ways to protect the ocean's damaged ecosystems. (Story first aired on All Things Considered on June 15, 2023.)

WHO says COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency

Leila Fadel

The World Health Organization has lifted the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for COVID-19. The declaration had been in effect since Jan. 30, 2020.

How do you get equal health care for all? A huge new database holds clues

Nurith Aizenman

The World Health Organization registry holds 11 million data points — key to addressing global health inequality. Yet health officials stress how much information is still missing.

Munyaradzi Musvosvi, a researcher who works for the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, in a storage facility at the University of Cape Town that holds in deep freeze the blood samples of people exposed to TB. He's part of a team working to develop a potential mRNA vaccine by looking at the immune cells in the blood samples.

Frozen cells reveal a clue for a vaccine to block the deadly TB bug

Nurith Aizenman

Tuberculosis kills 1.6 million a year — the second deadliest infectious disease after COVID-19. Using immune cells and mRNA technology, scientists in South Africa are working on a new vaccine.

The impact of the Ukraine war on food supplies: 'It could have been so much worse'

Nurith Aizenman

That's the view of Joseph Glauber of the International Food Policy Research Institute. He considers the fear the war would lead to a surge in food prices – and a dramatic worsening of world hunger.

The hunt is on to discover a COVID vaccine that wouldn't require freezers for storage

Nurith Aizenman

The mRNA shots against COVID were a game-changer but the shots need ultra-cold freezers that are unavailable in many low-income countries. Now the hunt is on for innovations to solve this problem.

Scientists race to detect new pathogens before they can spark another pandemic

Nurith Aizenman

Disease researchers from South Africa were the first to identify the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus. Scientists there are racing to detect new pathogens before they can spark another pandemic.

the Imvanex vaccine, used against monkeypox and often referred to as JYNNEOS, is manufactured by only one company: Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic. Global supplies are limited. Africa, where the current outbreak began, is shut out.

Is there enough monkeypox vaccine to go around? Maybe yes, more likely no

Nurith Aizenman

Only one company makes the currently used monkeypox vaccine. Supply is limited in wealthy nations like the U.S. Less well-off nations, like Nigeria, where the outbreak began, have no vaccines at all.

Brazilian scientist Sotiris Missailidis heads research and development at his country's premier agency for vaccine development, the Bio-Manguinhos Fiocruz foundation. He's been a key advocate for shifting Brazil's strategy toward inventing its own vaccines.

A dire moment in the pandemic ... was the chance he'd been waiting for

Nurith Aizenman

How Sotiris Missailidis, head of R&D in Brazil's vaccine agency, used the COVID crisis to push through a game-changing effort for middle-income countries to invent their own mRNA vaccine.