Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe first encountered Ebola in 1976, before it had been identified. Since then, from his post at the Congo National Institute for Biomedical Research, he has led the global search for a cure. Samantha Reinders for NPR hide caption
Doctors in the 1600s wore birdlike masks like these, which were thought to protect against disease. Which disease? Take the quiz and find out! Manuel Velasco/Getty Images hide caption
Addario's coverage of maternal mortality took her to a remote village in Badakhshan province, Afghanistan in 2009, where she photographed a midwife giving a prenatal check in a private home. "In these areas someone will announce that a doctor and a midwife are coming, and any pregnant and lactating women within a certain radius come if they want prenatal or postnatal care," she says. Lynsey Addario hide caption
A child is immunized against measles, mumps and rubella in Lyon, France. BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty hide caption
A nurse administers the rotavirus vaccine, given during the first year of a baby's life. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Demonstrators ransacked this Ebola transit center in Beni in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the struggle to control the disease — and the protests it has sparked — will be part of the global health landscape in 2019. Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
A girl is treated for suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sanaa, Yemen. There were more than 1 million cases of cholera in the country between April 2017 and April 2018. Hani Mohammed/AP hide caption
Some images from Goats and Soda's top stories of 2018. From left: changing the way we sit to fix back pain; is sleeping with your baby dangerous?; men walk near the site where the body of an 8-year-old girl, who was raped and murdered, was found. From left: Lily Padula for NPR; Fabio Consoli for NPR; Channi Anand/AP hide caption
Surgeons perform a cesarean section. A new report raises concerns about rising rates of this procedure around the world, from Brazil to China. Getty Images hide caption
Bryn Sobott of the FREO2 Foundation presents his group's solution to pneumonia treatment — an oxygen delivery machine that can operate using the energy generated by running water — at a pitch competition organized by Saving Lives At Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development in Washington, D.C. Pearl Mak/NPR hide caption
A colored scanning electron micrograph of a female Anopheles mosquito, a vector for the malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax. Dennis Kunkel/Science Source hide caption
Patients are treated at an Army ward in Kansas during the influenza epidemic of 1918. About 675,000 Americans died of the flu known as "la grippe." NYPL/Science Source/Getty Images hide caption
