Non-communicable diseases have been established as a clear threat not only to human health, but also to development and economic growth. The evidence is compelling. India stands to incur a loose $4.58 trillion between 2012 and 2030 due to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and mental health conditions.

A new WHO position paper examines the balance of benefits and harms in offering mammography screening to women after the age of 40 in a variety of settings. Every year, breast cancer kills more than 500,000 women around the world.

A high-level emergency meeting, convened by the World Health Organization at the request of several governments and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, was held on 23 October to look at the many complex policy issues that surround eventual access to experimental Ebola vaccines.

This is the nineteenth global report on tuberculosis (TB) published by WHO in a series that started in 1997.

The World Trade Report 2014 looks at how four recent major economic trends have changed how developing countries can use trade to facilitate their development.

Particularly after the sharp rise in oil prices in 2008, but throughout the 2000s, there was an unprecedented increase in public and private interest in diversifying energy sources.

According to this new WHO report, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood undernutrition

WHO issues a roadmap to guide and coordinate the international response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in west Africa. The roadmap aims to stop ongoing Ebola transmission worldwide within 6-9 months while rapidly managing the consequences of any further international spread.

This report presents a taxonomy of drivers of city competitiveness as well as a number of representative case studies of cities. The case studies are drawn from different geographies and varying levels of development that face different challenges and starting points.

Early next week, WHO will convene a panel of medical ethicists to explore the use of experimental treatment in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Currently there is no registered medicine or vaccine against the virus, but there are several experimental options under development.