Many factors affect child and adolescent mortality in high-income countries. These factors can be conceptualised within four domains—intrinsic (biological and psychological) factors, the physical environment, the social environment, and service delivery. The most prominent factors are socioeconomic gradients, although the

To achieve the post-2015 global tuberculosis target of 90% reduction in tuberculosis incidence by 2035, the present rate of decline must accelerate. Among factors that hinder tuberculosis control, malnutrition and diabetes are key challenges. The researchers reviewed available data to describe the complex relationship between tuberculosis, diabetes, and nutritional status.

Diabetes triples the risk for active tuberculosis, thus the increasing burden of type 2 diabetes will help to sustain the present tuberculosis epidemic. Recommendations have been made for bidirectional screening, but evidence is scarce about the performance of specific tuberculosis tests in individuals with diabetes, specific diabetes tests in patients with tuberculosis, and screening and preventive therapy for latent tuberculosis infections in individuals with diabetes. Clinical management of patients with both diseases can be difficult.

High body-mass index (BMI) predisposes to several site-specific cancers, but a large-scale systematic and detailed characterisation of patterns of risk across all common cancers adjusted for potential confounders has not previously been undertaken. The researchers aimed to investigate the links between BMI and the most common site-specific cancers.

A multimillion dollar international strategy to bring west Africa’s Ebola outbreak under control was launched by WHO and countries last week.

Two decades ago, the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda led to the deaths of 1 million people, and the displacement of millions more. Injury and trauma were followed by the eff ects of a devastated health system and economy. In the years that followed, a new course set by a new government set into motion equity-oriented national policies focusing on social cohesion and people-centred development. Premature mortality rates have fallen precipitously in recent years, and life expectancy has doubled since the mid-1990s.

Not since the Alma-Ata definition of primary care in 1978 has there been so much soul searching on how best to provide a first-contact system that is fair, equitable, accessible, cost effective, sustainable, and above all improves the health and wellbeing of the population it serves.

Progress in newborn survival has been slow, and even more so for reductions in stillbirths. To meet Every Newborn targets of ten or fewer neonatal deaths and ten or fewer stillbirths per 1000 births in every country by 2035 will necessitate accelerated scale-up of the most effective care targeting major causes of newborn deaths. We have systematically reviewed interventions across the continuum of care and various delivery platforms, and then modelled the effect and cost of scale-up in the 75 high-burden Countdown countries.

With the advent of effective antiretroviral treatment, the life expectancy for people with HIV is now approaching that seen in the general population. Consequently, the relative importance of other traditionally non-AIDS-related morbidities has increased. We investigated trends over time in all-cause mortality and for specific causes of death in people with HIV from 1999 to 2011.

In The Lancet, findings from Nita Bhandari and colleagues' phase 3 clinical trial1 show the safety and efficacy of the 116E rotavirus vaccine against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in Indian infants. The vaccine has an efficacy similar to that of two licensed oral rotavirus vaccines—RotaTeq (Merck) and Rotarix (GlaxoSmithKline)—when tested in low-income settings.2, 3 However, the timeline of development has been unique and unconventional. The vaccine was not the product of a major multinational manufacturer, but rather, the result of work by team science, based in India.