Health | WPN World People News

Violence and insecurity in Nigeria's Borno state continue to force wave upon wave of people to flee to remote towns, while Cameroon is forcibly returning refugees to the region, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on April 19th.

WHO reports remarkable achievements in tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) since 2007. An estimated 1 billion people received treatment in 2015 alone.

High-resolution microscopic image of mitochondria within a single heart cell. Mitochondria highlighted in red were exposed to ultraviolet light.

Scientists have shown that a class of immune cells not thought to be a primary reservoir for HIV can harbor the virus even following antiretroviral treatment (ART). The persistence of HIV in this type of cell—macrophages—means that treatment to eradicate HIV will have to target these cells in addition to those already demonstrated to have a role in the rebounding of HIV if ART is stopped.

After over a decade of persistent efforts, Togo has eliminated lymphatic filariasis—also known as elephantiasis—as a public health problem. The announcement follows a formal validation by the World Health Organization (WHO) which congratulated the Togolese government for this historic achievement.

A girl with diabetes checks her blood glucose level. Rates of youth getting both type 1 and type 2 diabetes have increased, according to the latest results of the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study.

Countries are not increasing spending fast enough to meet the water and sanitation targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), says a new report published by WHO on behalf of UN-Water – the United Nations inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater-related issues, including sanitation.

In studies of mice, scientists discovered a drug, designed to silence a gene called ataxin 2, may be effective at treating ALS and SCA2.

Analysis of daily gene activation in a patient with severe Ebola virus disease cared for at the National Institutes of Health in 2015 found changes in antiviral and immune response genes that pinpointed key transition points in the response to infection.

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections last a lifetime. Once a person has been infected, the virus can remain dormant (latent) for years before periodically reactivating to cause recurrent disease. This poorly understood cycle has frustrated scientists for years. Now, National Institutes of Health scientists have identified a set of protein complexes that are recruited to viral genes and stimulate both initial infection and reactivation from latency. Environmental stresses known to regulate these proteins also induce reactivation.