Complexity

Image: Art of a dog infested with a Guinea worm by Sally Deng for NPR

npr.org - August 9th, 2016 - Michaeleen Doucleff

For the past few years, the world has been on the edge of one of the biggest medical triumphs of modern history: Wiping out a horrific parasite from the face of the Earth.

In the early '80s, there were 3.2 million cases of Guinea worm — a two-feet long worm that emerges slowly — and excruciatingly — from a blister on the skin.

A massive campaign, led by President Jimmy Carter, has eradicated the worm from all but four countries.

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Image: Children after an India polio-vaccination event, 2012. Courtesy CDC.gov

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com - September 2nd, 2015 - Maryn McKenna

At the end of the decades-long global battle to eradicate polio from the planet, there is what looks like a simple goal: Render every person immune, by vaccination, for long enough that the disease can find no host in which to breed, and thus dies out. That was the strategy behind the eradication of smallpox, and since polio like smallpox affects only humans, it is supposed to work for that disease too.

Of course, it’s a little more complicated, and a paper published last week reveals one of the most challenging complications.

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DEVEX   by Molly Anders                                                                                         Feb. 19, 2015

...While the Ebola crisis is far from over, officials in government and the international development community have begun to think more the medium and long term. What can they learn from past post-crisis recovery initiatives?

  Health worker Alivin Davis poses next to the a board featuring handprints of Ebola survivors in Liberia. Photo by: Neil Brandvold / USAID / CC BY-NC

Devex asked aid officials and government officials from the region how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls that can plague — haunt, even — recovery and reconstruction efforts. Here are three of them.

1. Quality over quantity.

....By not paying closer attention to the economic effects of foreign aid on the local market, humanitarian groups hurt livelihoods and slowed reconstruction in the country.

2. Prioritize local ownership....