Global health confronts the risk of an inflection point. Decades of progress had us lagging behind in some places, making little or no gains in others but now facing an unacceptable need for bolder action. Pain hurts so much: 2025 got started right in the middle of 42 officially authorised health emergencies afflicting an estimated 305 million.

Infectious diseases continue as the dark cloud. Tuberculosis spiked back up in 2023 in some 8.2 million new cases, the highest annual number ever reported, and an estimated 1.25 million fatalities. Its return for the second time TB the top infectious killer was ahead of Covid-19. During the interim, the coronavirus persists. In May 2025, 73 reporting countries had an 11% test positivity ratio equalling previous highs.

Chronic non-communicable diseases overshadow ever larger. Ischaemic heart disease alone was the cause of over 9 million deaths worldwide in recent times, the largest single cause of death worldwide. Three quarters of total........

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