A New Malaria Treatment for Infants and a Century of Trans Medicine

Editors' Note

The eightieth UN General Assembly (UNGA) kicked off on Tuesday. Although early events are mostly procedural, they include a plenary session on the question of Palestine and the implementation of a two-state solution. That gathering comes after Israel attacked Hamas leadership in Qatar earlier this week, risking a ceasefire deal. UNGA's main course of business will arrive later this month—with a slate of high-level meetings, including one on climate change.

Malaria is one disease due to benefit from climate change, as warming temperatures expand the habitat of tropical mosquitoes that carry the parasites behind the infection. As that threat looms, countries including Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Uganda are set to approve Coartem Baby, the first malaria treatment for infants and children younger than 5. Its benefits, however, will depend on its integration with other malaria tools and the strength of the health systems where the drug is deployed, write CFR Senior Fellow Prashant Yadav and Research Associate Chloe Searchinger.

Staying on the topic of climate change, New York City Health + Hospitals' Komal Bajaj and Syra Madad reveal how their organization is now embedding environmental sustainability into the fabric of professional training and health-care delivery for the largest municipal hospital system in the United States.

Next, Lawan Hassan Adamu, associate professor of human anatomy at the Federal University Dutse, Nigeria, describes how online learning during the pandemic deepened inequalities and introduced physical and mental health burdens on vulnerable student populations in low-resource settings.

To cap the newsletter, Ketil Slagstad, physician-historian and author of Standardizing Sex: A History of Trans Medicine, has an excerpt of his new book that analyzes how trans medicine was born in 1920s Scandinavia.

Until next week!—Nsikan Akpan, Managing Editor, and Caroline Kantis, Associate Editor