Jason Beaubien

It's the last country in Africa where polio is hanging on. The good news: There hasn't been a case in more than 6 months. But that doesn't mean the virus is history.

The deployment of troops to build treatment centers and train health workers didn't pan out as planned. But as most of the troops are being withdrawn, it is clear the U.S. still made a difference.

As debate mounts in the U.S. over whether or not to require measles vaccinations, global immunization rates show something interesting: Many poor countries have far higher vaccination rates than rich ones.

Tanzania gets the most bang for its GDP-buck when it comes to measles vaccination. The East African nation is ...

The WHO's inability to quickly contain the outbreak is highlighting flaws in the agency's structure, and critics say pushing through real change will be incredibly difficult.

Something is destroying the kidneys of farm workers along the Pacific coast of Central America. Over the past two decades, more than 20,000 people in western Nicaragua and El Salvador — mostly men and many of them in their 20s and 30s — have died of a mysterious form of ...

GAVI asked and the world gave.

GAVI is the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. At a conference in Berlin today, the nonprofit group asked for help in meeting its goals of vaccinating 300 million children in low income countries against potentially fatal diseases.

The response was extraordinary: a total ...

Seven years ago, Carmen Guadalupe Vasquez Aldana went to jail in El Salvador. She was initially charged with abortion but prosecutors elevated the charge to aggravated homicide, arguing that the fetus was viable. Vasquez always contended that she did not have an abortion but had lost her unborn son due ...

Illegal mining in the headwaters of the Amazon is endangering people and fish hundreds of miles downstream.

Noncommunicable diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease are now the biggest killers on earth. They account for 68 percent of deaths — and have an even greater impact in the developing world.

Throughout the Ebola outbreak the two big questions have always been: How bad is this going to get? And when is it going to end?

Current data show that the numbers of new cases are dropping in all three of the hardest-hit West African countries. A new study predicts ...

The eradication of smallpox was arguably one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. But people had crazy ideas about the vaccine when it was created in 1798. A new exhibit tells the story.

Missionaries have been on the front lines in the fight against Ebola, and their faith and long ties to West Africa have made them key players in the response to the outbreak there.

When Dr. Ian Crozier arrived in West Africa this past summer, he was stepping into the epicenter of the Ebola hot zone. The American doctor was working in the Ebola ward of a large, public hospital in Sierra Leone's dusty city of Kenema.

The trip nearly cost him his life. ...

Between the rugged terrain and the constant terrorist threats, vaccinating Pakistani children against common diseases hasn't been easy. Mountains make it hard — at times even impossible — for vaccinators to reach people in the north. In the south, health workers have to use four-wheelers and camels to travel through ...

In this final round, every correct answer will start with a jolly "Ho!" sound. Which goalkeeper has won two Olympic medals with the U.S. women's soccer team? That would be Ho Ho Hope Solo!

Heard in Holiday Spectacular 2014

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are revamping the Ebola suit. They've come up with a design that's safer, cooler and easier to take off than the space suits currently in use in West Africa.

In Southeast Asia, the battle against malaria is growing even more complicated. And it's all because of monkeys, who carry a form of malaria that until a few years ago wasn't a problem for people.

"According to the textbooks there are only four species of plasmodium parasites that ...

On Christmas, a slew of Oscar hopefuls will hit theaters, taking on the kind of important topics you might expect from such prestige pictures: corruption in contemporary Russia, the psychological aftereffects of war, the struggles of the civil rights movement. In their company, the eccentricities of Alexandre Rockwell's Little Feet, ...

The soccer coach is giving his team a pep talk: "This is not an ordinary game," he declares as he paces in the locker room. "This is life or death. Ebola has defeated thousands in West Africa. Its key strength is passing."

Clearly this is no ordinary pep talk. And ...

Sometimes you stumble across statistics that just scream at you. I was looking this week through some reports on the Liberian Ministry of Health's website. The screaming statistic was an "8" listed as the number of people "currently in treatment" at the ELWA 3 Ebola treatment unit run by Doctors ...