PEPFAR Under Fire, Pandemic Treaty Revival, and India’s Hot Pesticides

Editors' Note

Kicking off this week, Emily Bass, author of To End a Plague: America's Fight to Defeat AIDS in Africa, delivers the first installment in her three-part series about how the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) came under political fire, despite ranking "among the most effective pieces of foreign aid in American history." As she writes, "guilt won't be assigned, but the evidence, ideas, and questions presented might help revive this program and pave the way for others like it."

Next, Suerie Moon, director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, previewed the tenth round of negotiations for the Pandemic Agreement, which began on Tuesday. She notes that the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body still needs to resolve several politically contentious issues before an accord can be reached to make the world a safer and fairer place.

Looking at South Africa, journalist Linda Nordling spells out how the African National Congress's recent loss in the general election will pose challenges to the new National Health Insurance law that seeks to equalize funding for health-care access.

Journalist Sanket Jain wraps up the edition by explaining how rising temperatures are forcing farmers in India to use more pesticides, harming their health.

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