Cholera is caused by a lack of access to clean drinking water and unhygienic conditions. Misuse of antibiotics makes it difficult and expensive to treat outbreaks.
The Bubonic plague slowed urbanisation, industrial development and economic growth in Europe for many years.
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Despite being so small they can’t be seen with the naked eye, pathogens that cause human disease have greatly affected the way humans live for centuries.
Spanish flu killed more people than the Great War that preceded it. And tuberculosis even more than that.
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Cholera kills thousands every year but is treatable if it is caught early. Understanding how El Niño shifts cholera risks in Africa can help countries prepare for outbreaks and save lives.
Children at a camp for people displaced by Boko Haram insurgents in North-East Nigeria.
Flickr/Immanuel Afrolabi
More than 788 health facilities have been destroyed in parts of North-Eastern Nigeria captured by Boko Haram insurgents, crippling health services in the area.
Developed and developing countries alike struggle with water quality problems. For World Water Day, a look at the challenges – and some potential solutions – to better treating wastewater.
Places with poor sanitation and insufficient clean drinking water are at risk of cholera outbreaks.
Simon Akam/Reuters
Africa should focus on the feasible reforms of the UN and de-emphasise its demand for improved representation on the Security Council voting reforms, given the complex politics around these issues.
The Haiti cholera outbreak has killed 10,000 people.
EPA/Orlando Barria
The ‘functional immunity’ granted to UN officials made good sense when the body was founded after World War II. But as its organisational functions have expanded, so has this immunity.
A medical centre for cholera victims in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
EPA/Orlando Barria
The way data is currently collected has limited use for environmental health researchers when it comes to understanding health problems at a localised level.
International businesses thrive on Haitian labour.
EPA
Former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier may be dead and buried, but real democracy remains a very distant prospect in Haiti. After ongoing failures to hold elections that should have taken place…
The country’s capacity to treat infected patients and prevent further spread is very limited.
UN Women Asia & the Pacific/Flickr
Contemplating how Papua New Guinea (PNG) would deal with Ebola may not be that different from asking the same of Liberia 12 months ago. While PNG’s per capita gross national income (US$2,540 in 2013) is…