Global Fund shortfall impacts global health programs

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s Global Checkup in your inbox a day early. Hello from Nairobi. This week’s edition has an unexpected through-line. Several stories reveal how the global health system is preparing for a long season of austerity: from staff cuts at the World Health Organization, to a disappointing funding cycle for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria control, to functioning drugs being abandoned over limited profit prospects. I’m trying to follow where bold pivots are being made, or where tough decisions are just being avoided. My name is William Herkewitz, and I’m a journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. This is the Global Health Checkup, where I highlight five of the week’s most important stories on outbreaks, medicine, science, and survival from around the world. With that, as we say in Swahili: karibu katika habari — welcome to the news. The big fundraiser with small donor energy Since we’ve last checked in, the Global Fund wrapped up its odd, tri-yea