The improbable victory over smallpox holds lessons for health threats in 2024

March 18, 202410:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageRahima Banu had the last recorded case of naturally occurring variola major smallpox, a deadly strain of the virus, in 1975. At left: Banu in her mother’s arms as a small child. At right: Banu today, close to 50 years old, lives in a small village in Bangladesh with her husband, Rafiqul Islam, and their children.

Michael Schwartz/CDC, Céline Gounder/KFF Health News

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Michael Schwartz/CDC, Céline Gounder/KFF Health News

Rahima Banu had the last recorded case of naturally occurring variola major smallpox, a deadly strain of the virus, in 1975. At left: Banu in her mother’s arms as a small child. At right: Banu today, close to 50 years old, lives in a small village in Bangladesh with her husband, Rafiqul Islam, and their children.

Michael Schwartz/CDC, Céline Gounder/KFF Health News

Smallpox was certified eradicated in 1980, but I first learned about the disease’s twisty, storied history in 1996 wh..

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Q&A: Author of ‘Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African’ on Coke’s surprising history

March 17, 20249:50 AM ET
Enlarge this imageA store in Monrovia, Liberia, advertises Coca-Cola. The photo is from circa 1947.

Alberts/Alberts/Three Lions via Getty Images

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A store in Monrovia, Liberia, advertises Coca-Cola. The photo is from circa 1947.

Alberts/Alberts/Three Lions via Getty Images

Author-historian Sara Byala had an epiphany about Coca-Cola’s role in African life and culture in 2003. She and a group of fellow graduate students had found their way across Mali’s Saharan Desert via an arduous journey that involved a broken-down jeep followed by bouts of hiking and hitchhiking.
When the exhausted group reached a Niger River ferry stop the next day, the pause that refreshes took on new meaning. “Boarding, grimy and parched, we are offered — as in a dream — ice-cold Coca-Cola,” she writes in her book, Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African.
At the time, she wondered, “How is this ..

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IOC Excludes Russian and Belarusian Athletes From Taking Part in the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

IOC Excludes Russian and Belarusian Athletes From Taking Part in the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach speaks at the opening of the executive board meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), at the Olympic House, in Lausanne, Switzerland, March 19, 2024. (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

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UN Says 5 Million at Risk of Starvation in Sudan

UN Says 5 Million at Risk of Starvation in Sudan

FILE – Sudanese refugee Fatma Ibrahim, who fled the violence in the city of Nyala, South Darfur, holds her twin babies who are being treated for severe malnourishment at a health center at the Kalma IDP camp in South Darfur, Sudan, Feb. 18, 2024.

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What in the World?

What in the World?Test yourself on the week of March 9: Portugal votes, the Princess of Wales causes a stir, and Haiti’s Henry promises to resign—on one condition.

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US Urges Panama to Remove Flag From Rogue Iranian Ships

US Urges Panama to Remove Flag From Rogue Iranian Ships

FILE – A demonstrator carries a Panamanian flag during a protest against U.S. policies in Latin America, in Panama City, April 9, 2015. On Wednesday, a U.S. special envoy urged Panama to stop Iranian ships from flying its flag, which allows Tehran to evade Washington’s sanctions.

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‘Man in Iron Lung’ Dead at 78

‘Man in Iron Lung’ Dead at 78

FILE – A staff member poses next to an iron lung in the Science Museum during a Guest Preview Day ahead of the official opening in London, Aug. 17, 2020. Paul Alexander of Dallas, Texas, a polio survivor knows as the “man in the iron lung” died aged 78 on March 12, 2024.

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African sun and a howling blizzard: trekking through Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains

March 12, 20245:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageJuniper forests and orchards planted by the Berber people frame the lower Toubkal valley in Morocco. Even in winter, the trees are full of songbirds.

Brian Mann/NPR

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Juniper forests and orchards planted by the Berber people frame the lower Toubkal valley in Morocco. Even in winter, the trees are full of songbirds.

Brian Mann/NPR

HIGH ATLAS MOUNTAINS, Morocco — When we set off on foot from a tiny mountain town called Imlil, it was still early, the sky purple. The peaks towering above the valley were just visible in the dim light, with rocks and crag outlined in sharp blue shadows.
The High Atlas Mountains run roughly east to west through central Morocco. They’re some of the wildest, most remote places in North Africa. I first glimpsed these soaring, snowcapped summits nearly 40 years ago.
In the 1980s, I was little more than a hippie kid hanging out in the nearby city of Marrakesh,..

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US Providing $300 Million in New Ukraine Military Aid

US Providing $300 Million in New Ukraine Military Aid

Missiles are launched from a U.S. military HIMARS system during joint military drills at a firing range in Shoalwater Bay, Australia, July 22, 2023. New U.S. military aid for Ukraine will include artillery rounds and munitions for HIMARS on the Ukraine front lines.

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Resilient and strong: Voices of women from Kenya’s largest ‘slum’

March 9, 20248:46 AM ET
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Hassan Ahmed for NPR

Hassan Ahmed for NPR

It’s the day after International Women’s Day. On March 8 each year, the United Nations declares a special day to pay tribute to the accomplishments of women, to express how much they are valued and to press for gender equality.
The Picture Show Photos from demonstrations around the world on International Women’s DayIn the wake of the celebrations and demonstrations held on this day, life goes on for women around the world. We interviewed women in Kibera, the Nairobi neighborhood that locals refer to as the largest “slum” in Kenya, to get a glimpse of their routines, their challenges, their sources of joy and strength. Their lives are a reminder of the challenges women face — and how they persevere.
Stellah Kamene: ‘I have been able to manage day-to-day activities of raising my 6-year-old son alone’Stellah Kamene, a 28-year-old single mother, is feeling good because of the U.N. day that ju..

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10 years after Chibok, Nigeria’s mass kidnappings return with a vengeance

March 8, 20245:12 PM ET
Enlarge this imageGunmen attacked a school in Nigeria’s northwest region Thursday morning and abducted between 200 and 300 students, according to authorities, marking the second mass abduction in the West African nation in less than a week.

AP

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Gunmen attacked a school in Nigeria’s northwest region Thursday morning and abducted between 200 and 300 students, according to authorities, marking the second mass abduction in the West African nation in less than a week.

AP

JOHANNESBURG — Nigerian security forces are searching for more than 200 children abducted from their school by gunmen on motorcycles Thursday, in the latest mass kidnapping to hit Nigeria.
Officials and witnesses have given varying figures of the number of students taken from the school in Kuriga, a town in northwestern Nigeria, with between 200 and 300 children reported to be missing, some of them as young as 8 years old.
It was the second such abdu..

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How did the world run so low on cholera vaccine? As outbreaks grow, stockpile runs dry

March 8, 20244:10 PM ET
Enlarge this imageSyrian medics launched a vaccination campaign in the northwestern Idlib province in early 2023. Such campaigns depend on the global cholera vaccine stockpile, which is currently empty.

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

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Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

Syrian medics launched a vaccination campaign in the northwestern Idlib province in early 2023. Such campaigns depend on the global cholera vaccine stockpile, which is currently empty.

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

The ancient disease of cholera is making a comeback in 2024 – but the world’s supply of vaccines can’t keep up.
The global stockpile of cholera vaccines is empty. There are no doses in reserve. And while the vaccine manufacturer is churning out 700,000 doses a week, all those vials are going directly to active outbreaks.
“The demand is four times more than the supply,” said Daniela Garone, the international medical coordina..

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Taliban Send Victims of Domestic Violence to Prison

Taliban Send Victims of Domestic Violence to Prison

FILE – Afghan women wait for food in the Baraki Barak district of Logar province, Jan. 7, 2024. A United Nations report released in December said the Taliban are sending to prison women who complain to them about gender-based violence and do not have male relatives to stay with.

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