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Editor's Choice
Ebola virus disease: The deadly hemorrhagic fever we’re learning to fight with vaccines and monoclonal antibodies
Dr. Fatoumata Koroma will never forget the day Ebola arrived at her clinic in rural Guinea. It was March 2014. A young man stumbled through the door with high fever,…
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Featured
Drugs (psychoactive): 296 million people used drugs in 2021—39.5 million affected by drug use disorders
Sarah Mitchell started using prescription painkillers after a car accident left her with chronic back pain. At first, the opioids her doctor prescribed worked well—they dulled the pain enough that…
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Editor's Choice
Drowning: The silent killer claiming 300,000 lives annually—most are preventable
Four-year-old Ravi wandered away from his mother for less than five minutes. She was cooking lunch in their village in rural Bangladesh when Ravi slipped through the doorway. Curious and…
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Featured
Drought: The slow-onset disaster threatening 700 million with displacement by 2030
Amina Hassan watched her youngest daughter, three-year-old Fatima, grow weaker each day. The rains hadn’t come to their village in Somalia’s pastoral region for three consecutive seasons. The family’s livestock—their…
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Editor's Choice
Dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease): The meter-long parasitic worm we’re about to eradicate
Emmanuel Tukura felt the familiar burning sensation on his left ankle one morning in rural Nigeria. Within hours, a painful blister appeared. The next day, it burst, revealing something horrifying—a…
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Editor's Choice
Disability: 1.3 billion people face health inequities created by barriers, not bodies
Maria Santos wheeled her chair up to the clinic entrance in Manila and stopped. Eight concrete steps. No ramp. No elevator. No alternative entrance. She’d arrived for her annual diabetes…
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Editor's Choice
Diphtheria: The throat-coating killer we thought we’d defeated is making a comeback
Six-year-old Amina started with what seemed like a simple sore throat. Her mother, Fatima, thought it was nothing serious—children get sore throats all the time in their crowded neighborhood in…
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Editor's Choice
Digital health: How technology is revolutionizing healthcare—and who’s being left behind
Dr. Amina Hassan in rural Kenya now consults with specialists 800 kilometers away through her smartphone. Five years ago, when a patient presented with a complex cardiac condition, she had…
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Health
Diarrhoea: 370,000 children die annually from this preventable disease
Four-year-old Amara’s mother knew something was terribly wrong. The diarrhoea started suddenly—watery stools, one after another, hour after hour. By the second day, Amara couldn’t keep anything down. Her eyes…
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Featured
Diagnostics: The critical medical tools that guide 70% of healthcare decisions
Dr. Amina Hassan stared at the small clinic’s single microscope—broken for three months. Without it, she couldn’t diagnose malaria definitively. She couldn’t identify tuberculosis bacteria in sputum samples. She couldn’t…
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Editor's Choice
Diabetes: 830 million people worldwide live with this chronic disease
Rajesh Kumar noticed the symptoms gradually, then all at once. The 42-year-old shopkeeper in Mumbai felt constantly thirsty, drinking water throughout the day but never feeling satisfied. He needed to…
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Editor's Choice
Depression: 280 million people live with this common mental health condition
Sarah Chen woke up one morning and couldn’t find a reason to get out of bed. Not because she was tired—she’d slept 12 hours. Not because it was a weekend—it…
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Editor's Choice
Dengue and severe dengue: 14 million cases in 2024 and climbing faster than any other infectious disease
The fever hit Maria Rodriguez like a sledgehammer. One morning she felt fine. By afternoon, her temperature soared to 104°F. Crushing headaches. Excruciating pain behind her eyes. Her muscles and…
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Editor's Choice
Dementia: 57 million people affected globally, 10 million new cases annually
Margaret started forgetting small things first. Car keys misplaced. Appointments missed. The same story told twice in one conversation. Her daughter noticed but brushed it off—Mom was 72, everyone gets…
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Featured
Deliberate events: When malicious acts target public health
The hospital emergency room in Salisbury, England, erupted into controlled chaos on March 4, 2018. Two patients arrived unconscious, frothing at the mouth, pupils constricted to pinpoints. The medical team…
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