Public health & disease

From disease eradication efforts to advances in vaccination and maternal health, this archive tracks real progress in public health. Stories here focus on what’s working — policies, interventions, and research that are improving and extending lives around the world.

image for article on ovarian cancer prevention vaccine

Scientists in the U.K. developing world’s first vaccine to prevent ovarian cancer

By / / Good News For Humankind

OvarianVax, in development at the University of Oxford, has just received up to £600,000 from Cancer Research U.K. to pursue the world’s first vaccine designed to prevent ovarian cancer before it begins. The idea is to train the immune system to recognize over 100 proteins found on early-stage ovarian cancer cells, then destroy those cells before they can spread. For women carrying BRCA gene mutations, who currently face the wrenching choice of preventive surgery that ends fertility and triggers early menopause, a vaccine could transform what’s possible. It’s still early days, with lab work and clinical trials ahead, but the project signals a real shift in cancer research: moving from treatment toward prevention, and giving high-risk women better options worldwide.

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Chinese researchers reverse type 1 diabetes using a patient’s own stem cells

By / / Good News For Humankind

Type 1 diabetes reversal using a patient’s own stem cells marks a historic milestone in medicine. A 25-year-old woman in China received a transplant of insulin-producing cells reprogrammed from her own body, and within three months was generating insulin naturally — eventually eliminating her need for external injections entirely. Published in Cell in 2024, the research is significant because it bypasses donor tissue and immunosuppressant drugs entirely, dramatically reducing rejection risk. For the roughly 8.4 million people worldwide living with type 1 diabetes, this proof of concept offers a genuinely new direction for treatment.

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Jordan becomes first country to receive WHO verification for eliminating leprosy

By / / Good News For Humankind

Leprosy has officially been eliminated in a country for the first time, with the World Health Organization verifying that Jordan has gone more than 20 years without a single locally transmitted case. Reaching that milestone took decades of coordination between Jordan’s Ministry of Health and WHO, plus surveillance systems sharp enough to catch cases arriving from abroad before they could spark local spread. Health leaders are quick to note that this was also a fight against stigma, which has shadowed the disease for millennia. With over 200,000 new cases still diagnosed worldwide each year, mostly in lower-income regions, Jordan offers something the global effort hasn’t had before: living proof that the finish line is reachable.

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Global alliance buys half a million mpox vaccines for Africa

By / / Good News For Humankind

Gavi has tapped its emergency First Response Fund for the very first time, committing up to $50 million to send 500,000 mpox vaccines to African countries hit hardest by the outbreak. The fund was built precisely for moments like this — letting the alliance move within days of a health emergency rather than waiting on slower funding cycles. The doses, from manufacturer Bavarian Nordic, will head to places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has carried the heaviest burden of the new Clade 1b strain. It’s a real start, even as experts estimate Africa needs around 10 million doses overall. If the tool keeps getting used and funded, it could reshape how quickly the world responds to outbreaks in lower-income regions.

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Nurse practitioners can provide abortions in Alaska, judge rules

By / / Good News For Humankind

Reproductive healthcare in Alaska took a meaningful step forward when a Superior Court ruling allowed nurse practitioners and physician assistants to provide medication abortion, and the change has reshaped daily life at clinics. Planned Parenthood’s Anchorage and Fairbanks locations went from offering abortion services one day a week to every day of the week, a shift that matters enormously in a state where reaching a provider can mean flying hundreds of miles. The Alaska Supreme Court is now weighing whether to reinstate the older physician-only rule, with justices openly questioning how geography shapes what counts as a burden. However the court rules, the case is a powerful reminder that healthcare access depends on who’s allowed to help — and where they live.

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‘Major milestone’ immunization campaign begins in North Korea with support of UNICEF

By / / Good News For Humankind

North Korea’s vaccination comeback is reaching every corner of the country — all 210 counties at once, with pregnant women included alongside children for the first time. Backed by UNICEF, more than four million doses arrived in July 2024 to jumpstart the effort, covering everything from measles to polio to hepatitis B. Over 7,200 health workers have been trained to deliver shots and respond to any reactions, and new freezers and cold boxes are keeping vaccines viable in remote areas. Before the pandemic, immunization coverage topped 96%, rivaling wealthy nations — a reminder that rebuilding what’s been lost is possible. Stories like this one show how patient, coordinated global health work can quietly restore protection for an entire generation.

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World’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine enters human trials in seven countries

By / / Good News For Humankind

A landmark mRNA lung cancer vaccine is now being tested in human patients for the first time, marking a historic milestone in cancer treatment. BNT116, developed by BioNTech, uses the same messenger RNA technology behind COVID-19 vaccines to train the immune system to recognize and destroy non-small cell lung cancer cells. The phase 1 trial spans 34 sites across seven countries, with roughly 130 patients enrolled. Unlike chemotherapy, this approach targets only tumor cells, potentially offering a more precise and lasting defense against the world’s deadliest cancer, which kills 1.8 million people annually.

Medications, for article on Medicare drug price negotiation

The U.S. negotiates Medicare drug price cuts that will save billions for U.S. citizens

By / / Good News For Humankind

Medicare drug price negotiation just delivered its first results, and the projected savings land at roughly $6 billion a year once new prices take effect in January 2026. After nearly six decades of being legally barred from bargaining with drugmakers, Medicare negotiated discounts on 10 widely used medications, including the blood thinner Eliquis and the diabetes drug Januvia. Some prices dropped by as much as 79%, with the deepest cuts going to drugs that faced the least competition. Around 9 million enrollees use these medications, and a new $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug costs adds further relief. Beyond the dollars, this shifts what’s politically possible — moving the U.S. closer to how most wealthy democracies have long approached medicine pricing.

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New twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV achieves 100% success rate in late-stage trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly HIV prevention shot, protected every single one of 2,134 women who received it in a late-stage trial across South Africa and Uganda — a 100% efficacy result so striking that monitors ended the blinded phase early. The breakthrough matters because daily prevention pills, while powerful in theory, often falter in real life: stigma, forgotten doses, and disrupted routines all chip away at protection. Two clinic visits a year, by contrast, means a full year of coverage. The remaining hurdle is access, with advocates pressing manufacturer Gilead to license generic versions for the regions hardest hit. If that happens, a tool this effective could reshape the global push to end the HIV epidemic by 2030.

Silhouette of cannabis leaf, for article on Maryland marijuana pardons

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore set to issue 175,000 pardons for marijuana convictions

By / / Good News For Humankind

Maryland’s marijuana pardons just cleared more than 175,000 convictions in a single executive order — the largest state-level pardon any governor has ever signed. Governor Wes Moore framed it as unfinished business from legalization itself, noting that people arrested for cannabis decades ago still carry those records into job interviews, housing applications, and college admissions today. The order falls hardest in favor of Black Marylanders, who were arrested for cannabis at three times the rate of white residents before the state legalized recreational use in 2023. Moore was honest about the limits: a pardon can’t return lost years. But paired with the federal push to reschedule marijuana, it signals a country slowly reckoning with who paid the price of the war on drugs.