“The WHO South-East Asia Region today [5/5/2025] renewed its commitment to eliminate malaria by 2030, with countries pledging accelerated action and greater efforts at the sub-national and community levels…

In 2020, the Region had 5 million estimated cases and 8900 estimated deaths – 80% less cases and 77% less deaths compared to 2010 – and the largest decline in any of the WHO regions.”

From World Health Organization.

“The researchers started with a group of 103 people. The trial participants were among the 2 to 3 percent of cancer patients with tumors that should respond to immunotherapy, a drug that overcomes barriers that prevent the immune system from attacking cancers.

But in clinical trials, immunotherapy is not supposed to replace the standard treatments. The researchers, led by Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. and Dr. Andrea Cercek, decided to give dostarlimab, an immunotherapy drug, on its own.

The result was stunning, and could bring hope to the limited cohort of patients contending with these cancers.

In 49 of the patients, who had rectal cancer, the tumors disappeared and, after five years, have not recurred. Cancers also vanished for 35 of 54 patients who had other cancers, including in the stomach, esophagus, liver, endometrium, urinary tract and prostate.

Out of all 103 patients, cancers recurred in only five. Three got additional doses of immunotherapy and one, whose tumor recurred in a lymph node, had the lymph node removed. Those four patients so far have no evidence of disease. The fifth patient had additional immunotherapy that made the tumor shrink.

The investigators reported their results Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research and in a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.”

From New York Times.

“Uganda today declared the end of the Ebola disease outbreak, less than three months after the virus was confirmed in the capital Kampala.

During this outbreak, 14 cases, 12 confirmed and two not confirmed through laboratory tests (probable), were reported. Four deaths, two confirmed and two probable, occurred. Ten people recovered from the infection. A total of 534 people were identified as having been in contact with the confirmed and probable cases and were closely monitored.

The last confirmed patient was discharged on 14 March 2025, triggering the 42-day countdown to officially declare the end of the outbreak, in line with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.

This was Uganda’s second Ebola outbreak in less than three years. It was confirmed on 30 January 2025. The country’s long-standing experience in managing outbreaks enabled a fast, coordinated, and effective response.”

From World Health Organization.

“Many Americans were forced to postpone cancer screenings — colonoscopies, mammograms and lung scans — for several months in 2020 as COVID-19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals.

But that delay in screening isn’t making a huge impact on cancer statistics, at least none that can be seen yet by experts who track the data.

Cancer death rates continue to decline, and there weren’t huge shifts in late diagnoses, according to a new report published Monday in the journal Cancer. It’s the broadest-yet analysis of the pandemic’s effect on U.S. cancer data.”

From Associated Press.