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December 10, 2012 About 10 years ago, some nasty bacteria became impervious to some common classes of antibiotics. Scientists have sequenced genome samples of this superbug from all over the world. The results helped them figured out how it emerged in the U.S. and then moved to Europe, Australia and Asia.

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December 6, 2012 Last spring, the Nigerian government pledged millions of dollars to decontaminate a region where hundreds of kids have died from severe lead poisoning. So far, none of the money has been released. The delay in the cleanup puts thousands of kids at risk of getting sick, public health advocates say.

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December 4, 2012 The appearance of an unusual type of poliovirus in Pakistan exposed gaps in vaccination campaigns. When a community isn't well immunized against polio, the weakened virus used in the oral vaccine can mutate and then infect unvaccinated people.

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November 30, 2012 The latest cases represent the oldest known so far. They push the SARS-like virus's timeline back three months from the first reported case involving a 60-year-old man who died in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, last June.

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November 29, 2012 HIV has been declining in many parts of the world over the past decade. Today the U.S. unveiled an ambitious plan to stop most new HIV infections around the world. But some health leaders question whether their goals are realistic, especially with impending budget cuts.

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On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

November 28, 2012 A few months ago health workers discovered a new variety of coronavirus that killed one man and hospitalized another. Now the virus has infected four more people in the Middle East. How they got sick is a question scientists would like to answer.

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November 21, 2012 Although new HIV infections have dropped by as much as 50 percent in many African countries, the fight against AIDS seems to be losing its footing in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. New infections nearly quadrupled in China between 2007 and 2011.

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November 16, 2012 After months of debate, the Global Fund announced plans to wind down a controversial pilot project that subsidizes malaria drugs in Africa. Some health workers in the U.S. fault the decision, saying it doesn't address the major challenges of treating malaria in poor countries.

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November 14, 2012 Southeast Asia is a hot spot for drug-resistant malaria. In the past few years, parasites in two regions have become less responsive to the last, best drug we have against malaria. Researchers report that this new type of drug resistance may be spreading to Vietnam and central Myanmar.

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November 14, 2012 Pakistan is close to eradicating one of the last two remaining types of polio left in the country, researchers announced on Monday. They haven't seen a case of this type in nearly seven months. Health workers are cautiously optimistic that their extra vaccination efforts are starting to pay off.

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November 12, 2012 Although Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne infection in New England, researchers find that babesiosis, a disease that mimics malaria, is catching up. The swelling population of white-tailed deer and the ticks that feed on their blood may be why.

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November 9, 2012 An experimental vaccine for malaria reduces infants' risk of the disease by about a third. That's less than researchers had hoped for, given the vaccine's effectiveness in toddlers, but doctors say it's enough to prevent many high fevers, seizures and deaths in a lot of African children.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

November 9, 2012 At health clinics along the Thai-Myanmar border, malaria is getting tougher to treat as resistance to medication grows. Doctors say it may be time to focus on eradicating malaria before the drugs lose potency.

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On Morning EditionPlaylist

November 8, 2012 Despite intensified efforts to vaccinate kids in Nigeria, polio cases are on the rise there. It's one of the last places in the world where polio is endemic. Most cases are popping up in a few communities that are now the prime targets for public health workers.

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November 6, 2012 Southeast Asia has been a hot spot for drug-resistant malaria in the past. Now researchers in Thailand worry that a superstrain resistant to the last, best malaria treatments could undermine progress made against the mosquito-borne disease.

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