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.

Human ear, for article on gene therapy for deafness

Chinese scientists develop novel gene therapy that allows deaf children to hear for the first time

By / / Good News For Humankind

Gene therapy has restored partial hearing in four out of five deaf children in a Shanghai trial, with each child regaining roughly 60 to 65 percent of typical hearing ability. The Fudan University team used a harmless virus to ferry a working copy of the otoferlin gene directly into the inner ear, where it began producing the protein these children had been missing since birth. Most had heard little or nothing their whole lives, so even partial hearing opens a window for spoken language to develop during early childhood. Parallel trials at Cambridge and Regeneron suggest the field is converging on a shared approach — a hopeful proof of concept that could one day extend to many more forms of inherited deafness.

Children holding the flag of Bangladesh

Bangladesh eliminates visceral leishmaniasis

By / / Good news links

Bangladesh has become the first country globally to be validated for elimination of visceral leishmaniasis, a life-threatening neglected tropical disease. The country achieved the elimination target of less than one case per 10,000 population at the sub-district level in 2017 and has sustained it to date.

Pyongyang buildings

North Korea eliminates rubella

By / / Good news links

North Korea introduced a mass measles-rubella immunization program in November 2019. Through this mass immunization activity, achieving more than 99.8% coverage in almost 6 million target population, the country has rapidly built substantial population immunity for rubella.

A medical professional reviewing cancer treatment data for an article about cervical cancer survival, for article on cervical cancer treatment

U.K. scientists cut cervical cancer death risk by 35% in major trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

Cervical cancer survival rates could improve dramatically after a major clinical trial found that adding a short course of chemotherapy before standard treatment reduces the risk of death or recurrence by 35%. Led by University College London researchers and funded by Cancer Research U.K., the trial showed 80% of women using the new approach were alive at five years, compared to 72% receiving standard treatment alone. The finding is considered the biggest advance in cervical cancer outcomes in over 20 years. Crucially, the drugs involved are already approved, widely available, and inexpensive, meaning the protocol could be adopted globally without new approvals or manufacturing delays.

Bandage on knee, for article on bioprinted skin

Breakthrough human-like bioprinted skin heals wounds better and faster

By / / Good News For Humankind

Bioprinted skin combining all six primary skin cell types has, for the first time, been successfully grafted onto wounds in pre-clinical trials — closing them faster and with noticeably less scarring. Researchers at Wake Forest layered keratinocytes, fibroblasts, adipocytes, melanocytes, and two other cell types into a three-layer structure mirroring real skin, then watched it grow blood vessels and integrate naturally with surrounding tissue. A larger graft, roughly two inches square, worked on a pig model — a meaningful step toward the kind of scale human patients actually need. For burn survivors and others who simply don’t have enough healthy skin to donate, a lab-grown alternative made from their own cells could transform one of medicine’s most painful, limited tools into something closer to true regeneration.