What do you get when you combine a socially-conscious hedge fund manager, a group of technical experts and a big disease with readily-available solution in a New York City basement for a day? Well, in this case, World Pneumonia Day (WPD). As I think about the WPD events...

Co-authored with Dr. Ciro de Quadros

The world is anxious for a dengue vaccine. It is estimated that 40 percent of the global population is at risk, and in too many countries, dengue fever is common and frequently causes outbreaks. When it hits, the effects on families and communities include...

Global health has not figured prominently in the US presidential campaigns so far. Jobs and the economy are the major issues, and the weak growth in new jobs from the most recent report has done nothing to change that. And like all recent Presidential elections, this one is...

Investment bankers would be wise to turn their attention to the news coming out of London this week, as it provides an unusual yet compelling discussion of dividends. This week's discussion among dignitaries such as Andrew Mitchell, Rajiv Shah, Melinda Gates and numerous heads...

This week in Geneva, health ministers from governments around the world will meet at the 65th World Health Assembly (WHA) for their annual meeting to discuss health issues that affect everyone everywhere. For those of you unfamiliar with this assembly, it's a bit like a parliament of health...

"How many doses should go in a vaccine vial?" seems like a pretty mundane question. But figuring out the best answer has major implications for delivering vaccines in low- and middle-income countries. Recently, the conventional wisdom on this topic has begun to shift -- and this week, health experts from...

Today in Ghana, I had a personal reminder as to why our work to prevent disease is so perilous, and why disease control so promising in Africa. Visiting the storied Princess Marie Louise Children's Hospital in Accra, I watched as an eight-month-old boy, Isiah, struggled against severe pneumonia. Isiah was...

With nearly 160 million people and rich with oil and gas reserves, Nigeria has tremendous human and natural resources to bring to bear on its challenges. This week, Nigeria's leaders will be focused on adding political will to the resources they bring to bear for the sake of children during...

Eradicating polio and improving the health of millions of children in Pakistan depend quite heavily on assuring that all children have access to life-saving vaccines. Geography, instability, poor infrastructure, inadequate female education and other factors make effective vaccine delivery a challenge in Pakistan, under any circumstances. Compound those challenges with...

Several major announcements have been made in recent weeks about the expansion of vaccine access to the world's poor. This progress and the "Power of Vaccines" are the subject of a high level discussion today in Washington convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies...

Today the global health community recognizes the third annual World Pneumonia Day with the release of two new studies on pneumonia and events in more than 15 countries calling attention to the disease, which remains the world's leading killer of young children....

Last week in Seattle, Bill Gates announced breakthrough results from a large malaria vaccine trial. The study, conducted in seven sub-Saharan African countries, showed that the most advanced malaria vaccine -- called RTS,S -- could cut the risk of malaria by as much as 56 percent...

This week the GAVI Alliance announced that 37 countries -- the majority in Africa, but all told, spanning all six WHO regions -- have been cleared for financial support to introduce one or more new vaccines into their national immunization programs. These include vaccines that protect children against...

If you're an adrenaline junkie and you want to pursue a health career, you're probably better served by becoming an emergency room doctor than an epidemiologist or researcher. In these careers, you may work a long time for uncommon rewards and infrequent milestones of success.

Yet in...

This blog entry is authored by M. Katie Charles, one of Orin Levine's graduate students at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This post is the first of a three-part series entitled "Tomorrow's Vaccine Policy Leaders."

Consider that you are among the 50 million Americans geographically relocating this...

By Dr. Orin Levine and Amanda Glassman

In low- and middle-income countries, children living in poverty are less likely to be vaccinated -- and more likely to die or become ill from a vaccine-preventable disease -- than wealthier children.

A perfect example of this can be found in Nigeria, where...

Like many global health professionals, I've spent days traveling by airplane, bus, motorcycle and foot to remote villages in Africa and Asia, only to find Coca-Cola distribution businesses thriving, while children visiting health centers remain unimmunized and without essential medicines. This observation gained public notice when it was...

More progress has been made in vaccine pricing in the past 10 days than in the past decade. On Monday, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck announced their decision to slash the prices they charge the world's poorest countries for rotavirus vaccines by up to 68 percent. This decision marks the...

Diphtheria. Measles. Whooping cough. Polio. In the minds of most of Americans, these are killers from a bygone era. If you think these diseases belonged to your parents and grandparents and not to our generation, you may be surprised to hear that these killers are making a comeback. And like...

When not focused on the forthcoming royal wedding in London, much of the world on April 25 directed its attention to World Malaria Day. In the U.S., we heard from the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) that child death rates in focus countries have declined by 23-36...