💉 The billionaire in our ovary; Vaccines still matter; Are we ever ending malaria?
#561 | That's how the city crumbles; Give the kidney a spotlight; Software to hunt pathogens
Hello, and welcome back to The Kable, everybody's favourite cheery weekly recap of all things life sciences.
First, some good news. Uganda is close to calling time on its ongoing Ebola outbreak with an impressive 83% recovery rate, more than twice the typical survival rate from Ebola. This was revealed by the Africa CDC in their weekly briefing. In the same briefing, the agency reported that mpox numbers on the continent are continuing their downward trend, and that we might soon see the back of this continent-wide outbreak too.
In more good news, the Africa CDC has received its first voluntary contribution of $5 million from Angola towards the agency's continental health financing plan.
In a bit of a surprise, Indian drug makers issued product recalls in the US due to labelling and manufacturing errors. Big surprise.
Novo Nordisk minted billions with its GLP-1 drugs. But even before that, the company has been making enough money off of its diabetes drugs portfolio. Not enough, however, to hire good people to name their drugs, one assumes. Anyway, the company is discontinuing its largest-selling insulin brand in India, Human Mixtard. One assumes the name has nothing to do with the pause.
It is not just vicious disinfo and misinfo campaigns that are resulting in a decline in childhood vaccination rates globally. Now, funding cuts are contributing drastically.
Speaking of funding cuts, the WHO's "final" people realignment seems to be in place. In a briefing, the agency said it will be cutting senior leadership by almost 50% and retaining only four programme divisions at its Geneva headquarters. We know this is forced, but the WHO desperately needed an overhaul in its functioning and budget allocations. So maybe, good will yet come out of this.
And finally, every so often, a certain type of man will proclaim something ridiculously bombastic and be hailed as a visionary for making patently ridiculous statements. Like this person, the co-founder of Google's DeepMind, who said AI could end all disease within 10 years. A lot of heavy lifting that could is doing here.
Stories Of The Week
India’s billionaire health hustle. Do you think billionaires should stay out of your uterus and your lungs and liver and your arteries? Too late: they're already in there. At least, in India, according to delegates at a symposium on the growing influence of powerful private actors (PPAs) on global health, convened by the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) and Third World Network in Kuala Lumpur. India’s healthcare sector minted more billionaires in 2022 than almost any other industry. But behind the glossy hospital facades lies a darker diagnosis: profit-first medicine. With private hospitals pushing non-essential procedures (48% of private births are C-sections vs 14% in public ones), and the industry cosying up to Big Tobacco, Big Food, and fossil fuel giants, public health is being quietly hijacked. Not only are these industries making us sick, they're also fighting tooth and nail to block health regulation. People 0, Profits 1.
(Health Policy Watch)
Africa and Malaria - A love story eternal. World Malaria Day came and went this week, with the WHO calling on countries to “Reinvest, Reimagine, Reignite” their efforts to end malaria for good. But for Africa - the region carrying 95% of global malaria deaths - the fight is far from over. In fact, the road ahead may be getting harder.
From surging cases to shrinking funds, the continent’s malaria burden is at a crossroads. In March alone, Rwanda recorded over 87,000 cases. Namibia’s Zambezi region saw reinfections climb, while Ohangwena surged past 5,000 cases with nine confirmed deaths. Uganda, despite promising innovations like gene-drive mosquito control and expanded vaccine rollout, continues to grapple with persistent transmission. Nigeria, still the epicentre, accounts for 27% of global cases and 31% of deaths.
Calls to “reimagine” are welcome, but for Africa, the reality is painfully familiar: domestic funding remains low, climate change is shifting transmission zones, and life-saving tools like insecticide-treated nets are out of reach for too many.
The Namibia Economist had a piece this week titled “Malaria is an African problem,” which goes on to say Africa must find the solution. That means local strategies, regional ownership, and less dependence on external donors. Because if malaria is to end, it won’t be with slogans. It will be with science, sustained support, and a lot more urgency.
(WHO, Namibia Economist, New Times, WHO, Independent, Namibian, Namibian, The Conversation)
Vaccines save lives. Regardless of all the contrary chatter, the fact is vaccines save lives. In 2023, vaccination efforts across Africa saved at least 1.8 million lives, thanks to increased vaccine coverage against diseases like measles, polio, and cervical cancer. Routine immunisation services are also rebounding post-Covid, with DTP3 coverage among one-year-olds rising from 72% to 74%, despite a growing birth cohort. However, global aid funding cuts are disrupting childhood vaccination efforts, nearing the levels of disruption seen during the pandemic. These cuts have led to reduced vaccine supplies and impaired disease surveillance systems, meaning all the gains made in combating preventable diseases are at risk. Need proof? Look no further than the US where scientists say measles is on the verge of becoming endemic.
(Gavi)
Breakthroughs
Taking preventive aim. In a high-stakes hunt for antiviral treatments against lethal bat-borne viruses like Nipah and Hendra, a team of San Antonio researchers used machine learning to screen 40 million compounds, identifying 30 promising candidates in record time. Leveraging software developed by Southwest Research Institute, scientists mapped viral protein structures using measles as a model, bypassing the need for costly, high-containment labs. With mortality rates as high as 75%, and growing spillover risks in Asia and Australia, this AI-powered breakthrough could be a gamechanger for a whole family of infectious threats.
(Southwest Research Institute)
Bottom line
City life anyone? In Asia, pretty much every city is a megacity. Once emblems of prosperity, these cities are now buckling under climate chaos, greying populations, and explosive, unregulated growth. A new UN ESCAP report warns that cities like Delhi, Dhaka, and Shanghai risk reversing economic progress if governments don’t urgently shift to urban models rooted in resilience and equity. Record-breaking heat in 2024 exposed crumbling infrastructure and widened inequality, especially in slums where residents face the brunt of climate shocks with the least support. Meanwhile, cities are ageing fast - 1.3 billion people in Asia-Pacific will be over 60 by 2050 - and are alarmingly unprepared. In a time where people are increasingly migrating to cities, these mortal engines of growth are beginning to seize, choked by heat, age, and inequality. Without decisive action, they won’t power the future, they’ll bury it.
(UN ESCAP)
Don't look up, everything's fine. A new study finds that if we stay on our current emissions path, there’s a 62% chance we’ll trigger one or more of Earth’s 16 known climate “tipping points” - irreversible shifts like ice sheet collapse, rainforest dieback, and coral reef loss. But it’s not all doom: researchers from Exeter and Hamburg say the future isn’t fixed. Lower-emission scenarios drastically cut the risk. Encouragingly, carbon released by potential Amazon or permafrost tipping points may not cascade into a global tipping spree. Still, the verdict is clear: we’re on a dangerous trajectory, and the only way out is to flip our own “positive tipping points” through urgent, systemic climate action. But hey, the risk is only 62%? Sure, governments will take action.
(Earth System Dynamics)
Long reads
Not all good things are free. We don't charge for The Kable. All this lovely good cheer comes to you free. Heck, we don't even really do advertising. All of which is a roundabout way of saying we can't afford a Devex Pro subscription. If we could, we might have read this piece on the World Bank's project pipeline. The unpaywalled bit that we did read sure sounds interesting.
(Devex)
The forgotten organ. Kidney disease has somehow managed to avoid the limelight around the world. This piece in Nature argues that it is time to make the kidney shine again.
(Nature)
The malaria war. It was World Malaria Day this week. It's only fitting then that we bring you a summary of where we are in the war against malaria. But before you read that, say this five times and fast: Many meddling mosquitoes merrily migrate, masking malicious malaria microbes in midnight mayhem.
(The Conversation)
Oh, and Gopal Nair doesn't want you to see this.