The climate emergency is turning fragile supply chains into a crisis →

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Even before catastrophic floods hit Pakistan last year, antiretroviral medicines, or ARV, were in short supply for people in the country living with HIV. Some patients were traveling up to seven hours to receive care and pick up free medicines at government clinics. When the floods began in June, facilities already stretched by the COVID-19 pandemic started to run out of lifesaving medications altogether, said Anmol Mohan, a recent medical school graduate who began investigating after ARV shortages were reported during the pandemic.

“Patients didn’t have lifesaving medicines,” she said. “People had to travel, to take the whole day off and then the medicines weren’t there.”

The private market became the only source for such medicines, she said, but at prices that were out of reach of many patients. That left people in danger of developing resistance to the treatment and of falling dangerously ill.

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The monkeypox messaging mess →

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Even with a monkeypox caseload that’s soared to more than 16,000 in 75 countries, activists said officials in hotspots like Berlin and London continue to fumble the distribution of a smallpox vaccine that’s also effective against monkeypox. Officials cite bureaucratic hurdles. Activists are also frustrated that the pharmaceutical industry isn’t rushing out existing treatments or more urgently searching for new ones. Read more.

In Africa, banking on others' breast milk to save newborns →

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Newborn deaths have seen a massive decline globally over the past three decades, but sub-Saharan Africa bears the highest rate: At least 27 of every 1,000 children born in the region do not survive their first 28 days. Access to breast milk, which confers vital nutrients and can help prevent infections, could save their lives.

But not every child has access to a caregiver who can breastfeed them and not every mother can breastfeed her child. That is where human milk banks come in — to collect, test, process and, ultimately, distribute donated human milk for babies in need. Read more.