Confirmed: Portable lung preservation system for extended criteria donor lungs is safe and effective

17 July 2025, Cairo, Egypt – Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean joined with mental health partners and stakeholders to launch the Regional Coalition for Mental Health Promotion and Substance Use Prevention. The Coalition will provide a platform to align strategies and maximize collective impact. Stakeholders will be able to transform how mental health, psychosocial support and substance use are addressed across the Region and facilitate the urgently needed shift from stigmatization to empowerment, punishment to prevention, isolation to integration and fragmentation to coordinated, impactful action. Tackling mental health conditions and substance use poses a major challenge at both the global and regional level. In today’s context of shrinking resources and growing needs, unified strategic actions are required. No single sector or agency can address the pressing challenges alone. The Coalition brings together civil society actors working on the frontlines of mental health and substance use, many led by people who have been directly affected. Their work spans prevention, rehabilitation, advocacy, service delivery and policy reform. People with lived experience are a vital resource and must be engaged with as equal partners and leaders, not as beneficiaries or symbols. Mental health conditions and substance use disorders exact a devastating toll across the Eastern Mediterranean Region – on individuals, families and communities. One in 6 people in the Region lives with a mental health condition. Substance use is on the rise, with 6.7% of adults affected – above the global average – of whom only a fraction receive treatment. Read more...

A simple digital photograph of the back of the eye can predict a major cardiovascular event—such as a heart attack or stroke—set to happen in the next decade with 70% accuracy, according to research supported by the British Heart Foundation and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

The UK's pioneering licensed IVF technique to reduce the risk of mitochondrial diseases carried out in Newcastle has seen eight babies born, research shows.

A new treatment that uses music therapy on dementia wards could improve care and support for some of the NHS's most vulnerable patients.

A new study from Florida State University's Claude Pepper Center and Pepper Institute on Aging & Public Policy has shed new light on the importance of psychological resilience for aging adults experiencing widowhood, including notable gender differences in recovery.

Data released this week by the World Health Organization and UNICEF indicate modest gains in childhood vaccination rates, but globally, more than 14 million children remain unvaccinated.

Newborns exposed to HIV during pregnancy or birth should receive preventive antiretroviral medication immediately after delivery to reduce the risk of transmission from mother to child.

A new study that examined older and newer medications to treat seizures has found that using some medications during pregnancy is linked to an increased risk of malformations at birth, or birth defects. The study is published in Neurology.

Hispanic people have an increased risk of peripheral neuropathy compared to white people that cannot be explained by many health, lifestyle and social risk factors, according to a study published in Neurology.

In utero exposure to two liquid ingredients in e-cigarettes—minus the nicotine that drives addiction—can alter skull shape during fetal development, a new study in mice has found.

The human intestine is home to a dense network of microorganisms, known collectively as the gut microbiome, which actively helps to shape our health. The microorganisms help with digestion, train the immune system and protect us against dangerous intruders. However, this protection can be disrupted, and not just by antibiotics, which—when used for treatment—are intended to prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

From your phone to your sponge, your toothbrush to your trolley handle, invisible armies of bacteria are lurking on the everyday objects you touch the most. Most of these microbes are harmless—some even helpful—but under the right conditions, a few can make you seriously ill.

Aerobic exercise and a high capacity for exercise may protect against metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), also known as fatty liver disease, by increasing the conversion of cholesterol into bile acids, according to a new study published in the journal Function.

Food insecurity is not only linked with, but directly causes symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to research published in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have identified a new way of predicting whether a kidney donor and recipient are a good match for transplantation.

Frailty is a medically defined condition in older adults that increases vulnerability to everyday stresses, leading to a higher risk of falls, hospitalization and loss of independence. Warning signs of frailty include:

Many people might be aware of an ongoing opioid epidemic, with thousands of people dying every year from overdoses. But many who are misusing opioids are also using—and dying from—stimulant drugs as well, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health by Yutong Li from the University of Alberta, Canada, and colleagues.

In an opinion piece published in the open-access journal PLOS Climate, Jeremy Jacobs of Vanderbilt University and Shazia Khan of Yale School of Medicine draw attention to the rollback of government efforts to collect data on climate change, and how the loss of this infrastructure imperils public health efforts.