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EU climate monitor Copernicus maps highlight severe extreme weather and heatwaves across Europe in May 2026. Following a severe May heatwave, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued new global guidelines on Thursday in Berlin to accelerate climate adaptation and structurally overhaul health systems and urban spaces. Over the past four years, extreme heat has claimed more than 200,000 lives across Europe, positioning it as the deadliest climate-related hazard. As new climate data reveals, global warming was pushed to 1.37°C above pre-industrial levels in 2025 – and is expected to breach the critical 1.5°C threshold within four years. WHO estimates the…

‘Groundbreaking’ NHS teams that have freed up thousands of hospital beds, accelerated cancer diagnosis, and transformed care for patients have been recognised at the inaugural 2026 NHS Excellence Awards. Held today at NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester, the awards celebrated some of the most innovative and impactful healthcare initiatives from across England, showcasing how frontline staff are delivering better outcomes for patients while helping the NHS meet growing demand. This year’s winners include a new virtual ward from the Medway Foundation Trust, which freed up nearly 5,000 beds while maintaining low readmission rates. While the Marie Curie Responsive Emergency Assessment and…

A&Es experienced their busiest month on record in May, as last month’s heatwave piled pressure on NHS services. The NHS managed 2,457,398 attendances in A&E during May – up 25,000 on the previous record set in March earlier this year – according to newly published NHS data. The figures mean the NHS has now seen two record-breaking months for A&E demand in 2026. Ambulance services were also under intense pressure, with paramedics experiencing their third busiest month ever – and demand at levels never seen outside of winter – after handling 832,089 incidents in May. Despite the unprecedented demand, 1.86…

Highlights Two recent federal actions, including a memo about alleged COVID-19 vaccine deaths and settlements creating a “detransition clinic,” show how official actions can present uncertain or uncommon outcomes as representative and lend credibility to narratives that go beyond what evidence supports. Recent Developments Official Actions Elevate Uncertain or Uncommon Outcomes in Debates Over Vaccine Safety and Gender-Affirming Care Official actions can elevate unverified or uncommon outcomes in ways that shape public perceptions beyond what evidence suggests. Two developments show how such actions can lend weight to narratives not borne out by evidence, one by overstating a causal link not…

President Donald Trump, who once declared he had “saved” flavored vapes, grew his stock holdings this year to as much as $1.64 million in tobacco giant Philip Morris. He also had holdings in Altria and a third leading tobacco company, though an apparent discrepancy in his disclosures clouds the extent of his investments. In 2025, tobacco interests donated $6 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that supports the president, and Trump’s inauguration. And, on April 30, a week before FDA guidance that provided a critical boost to the industry, Reynolds American dropped an additional $5 million into the super…

The House Appropriations Committee released its Fiscal Year 2027 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor HHS) appropriations bill on June 4, 2026 and accompanying explanatory report on June 8, 2026. While most U.S. global health funding is provided to the State Department through a separate appropriations bill (see the KFF budget summary on this funding here), the Labor HHS appropriations bill includes funding for global health programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as funding for global health research activities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Total global health funding…

A community health worker administers an HIV test. HIV experts are concerned about the drop in HIV testing since the US cut its funding. Precipitous aid cuts are casting a huge shadow over the United Nations High-Level Meeting (HLM) on HIV on 22-23 June, with new research indicating that some countries could face almost total cuts in aid from the United States by 2030. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned last week that the world is far from achieving the 2025 targets set out in the Political Declaration adopted at the last HLM on HIV in 2021. The 95-95-95 targets…

Officials, environmental health advocates, and skin care industry groups are expressing hope that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a sunscreen ingredient on June 9 — after consideration for two decades, and global use for nearly as long — will help restore Americans’ wavering faith in sunscreen. “Bemotrizinol has been used safely in Europe for decades,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the announcement about the approval. “FDA’s action will increase competition and consumer confidence in sunscreen products.” Nonprofits that advocate for health, such as the Environmental Working Group, and the skin care industry…

Worsening fiscal constraints and changing policy priorities have resulted in significant funding cuts to global health and development programs. While these reductions predated the cuts and disruptions made by the U.S. government last year, they were exacerbated by U.S. actions. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently reported that international aid fell significantly in 2025, driven primarily by the U.S., and that further declines are likely on the horizon. The health sector has not been immune to these pressures. The U.S. government and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), the top two donors1…

The looming impact of federal Medicaid cuts has reignited a long-simmering, costly battle between California’s medical industry and one of its largest health worker unions. SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, with approximately 120,000 members, has put forward two ballot initiatives to cap the pay of medical executives and require community clinics to spend the vast bulk of their revenues on patient care. The California Hospital Association has responded with its own ballot proposal that would make it tougher for unions to spend money on political initiatives in the future. It would require approval by a union’s rank-and-file membership for any spending…

SALT LAKE CITY — Ben Dowse hadn’t expected to treat measles when he became a doctor, but there he was, examining a newborn exposed to the virus in the womb. The infected mother had given birth just hours earlier. The hospital had alerted Dowse to the case before delivery, and he’d braced himself for the worst. Dowse wore a full-body protective suit with a plastic face mask. As a pediatrician in southern Utah, he couldn’t risk getting even a mild infection, because many of his patients are babies too young for measles vaccines or children whose parents choose not to…

Thousands of men with prostate cancer are to be offered high-powered ‘precision’ radiotherapy on the NHS to target the disease more effectively, helping reduce side-effects and spare them 15 courses of treatment. NHS England has today announced that, for the first time, eligible men with early prostate cancer will be offered pioneering therapy known as SABR on the NHS, which delivers a higher dose to the tumour with pinpoint accuracy to avoid harming healthy cells. The highly targeted SABR (stereotactic ablative radiotherapy) delivers radiotherapy to the tumour from many different directions to help reduce the risk of cancer spreading or…

Approximately 59.7 million women ages 19-64 (60%) received their health coverage from employer-sponsored insurance in 2024 (Figure 1).2 Women in families with at least one full-time worker are more likely to have job-based coverage (70%) than women in families with only part time workers (33%) or without any workers (16%).3 In 2024, annual insurance premiums for employer sponsored insurance averaged $8,951 for individuals and $25,572 for families. Family premiums have increased 24% between 2019 and 2024. On average, workers paid 16% of premiums for individual coverage ($1,368) and 25% for family coverage ($6,296) with the employers picking up the balance.…

WHITE HOUSE/EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENTNational Security Advisor/Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, National Security Council (NSC)Marco RubioDirector, Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP)VacantDirector, Office of Management and Budget (OMB)Russ VoughtU.S. Trade Representative, Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)Jamieson GreerDirector, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)Michael KratsiosDirector, Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR)VacantU.S. Coordinator for Global Health SecurityVacantDEPARTMENT OF STATESecretary of StateMarco RubioPermanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations, U.S. Mission to the United NationsMike WaltzSenior Official, Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious FreedomJeremy LewinAmbassador-at-Large for Global Health Security and…

Health workers don protective gear against Ebola. This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian. The response to the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) must be rooted in the country’s local health structures and avoid “asymmetrical” suffering by treating those in state-controlled and rebel-run areas the same, says a leading Congolese virologist. The current epidemic involves the less fatal Bundibugyo strain of the virus, but there is no vaccine yet for this variant and the outbreak is unfolding in an area of armed conflict between government forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group.…

Africa CDC staff on the ground in the DRC to assist with the Ebola outbreak (May 2026). As the Bundibugyo Virus Disease (BVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda reached 608 confirmed cases and 102 deaths, global health leaders called for “an end to the cycle of panic and neglect” in response to disease outbreaks. Describing the Ebola outbreak as a “preventable disaster”, the leaders have written an open letter to governments calling on them to “make decisions that will prevent and stop infectious disease outbreaks from killing people, draining economies and further fraying societal…