The United Nations marks International Day of Epidemic Preparedness  on 27 December, a day that arrives quietly on the calendar but points to an enduring public responsibility. Public health experts define an epidemic as a sudden surge in disease cases within a specific community or region, and a pandemic as an epidemic that has spread across multiple countries or continents. These definitions shape our approach: local outbreaks demand rapid containment, while global spread r

The United Nations marks 1 December as World AIDS Day . This year, however, the world has less to celebrate in our collective effort to combat this epidemic, due to historic funding cuts and a growing human rights crisis in the international AIDS response . The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS ( UNAIDS ), which leads global efforts to achieve the goal of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths, released a report earlier this year h